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Leaving the Planetary Cradle
| Article
# : |
18968 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1991 |
2,663 Words |
| Author
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Mark Nelson
Mark Nelson is chairman of the Institute of Ecotechnics in the
United Kingdom and director of space applications at Space
Biospheres Ventures in Oracle, Arizona. |
All life on earth, including man, has evolved in an environment that provides the essential needs of life, including atmospheric gases, nutrition, water, and an equable climatic regime. We live for the most part unappreciative of this life-support infrastructure and are just beginning to unravel the mechanisms and dynamics of its operation. The commencement of space exploration a few decades ago underlined the uniqueness of our planetary biosphere and accelerated the scientific study of closed ecological systems, which is needed if we are to learn to live in space independent of supplies sent from the earth.
The biosphere has been defined as the thin layer where life is found on the surface of the earth. More generally, a biosphere may be considered to be a stable, complex adaptive, and evolving life system. Biospheres are closed in terms of matter, and open in terms of energy and information. The earth's biosphere is relatively closed materially, although relatively small gains and losses are recorded with both outer space and the crustal layers underlaying the biosphere. Energetically, the earth's biosphere is open, primarily powered by incoming solar radiation which heats the earth and is also captured by plants in energy-rich molecules that provide energy for most forms of life. Informationally, our biosphere is also open for exchange of communications with the rest of the cosmos--as was dramatized when we received radio signals from the Voyager space probes and were able to reprogram them over distances of millions of miles.
Although a few intrepid underwater explorers, and later, submariners, experimented with carrying an essential component of the biosphere, oxygen, along with them, serious research into closed ecological systems capable of providing life support was sparked by the Space Age. A simple calculation reveals why space visionaries have long recognized that for man to truly emerge from his "planetary cradle," to live for extended periods and eventually expand off the planet, regeneration of life-support requirements would be indispensable. It takes, on average, about one and a quarter pounds of food, two pounds of oxygen, and four pounds of drinking water, a total of more than seven pounds, to support a person each day. If we add domestic water (for washing, cooking, laundry, etc.) it adds another 30 pounds to this requirement. In addition, a closed life-support system should be able to process each day over six pounds of solid and liquid wastes and two pounds of carbon dioxide that are respired by our space inhabitant. The implications are clear: Extended and permanent human presence in space requires that we "close the loop" in the regeneration of air, food, and water involved in human life
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