Biological In Situ Resource Utilization
For Planetary Sustainability
aquacare.de
John Cumbers Ph.D [email protected], [email protected]
NASA Ames Space Portal and CEO SynBioBeta LLCc
Biological In Situ Resource Utilization
For Planetary Sustainability
But which planet?
$5,359 / Liter
$2.21 / Liter
0.30 c / Liter
0.0008 c / Liter
$16,700 / KG
$13,812 / KG
Ariane V
Atlas V
$10,476 / KG
Soyuz 2
$5,359 / KG
Falcon 9
Cost of ISS?
•
•
$1.5 b per year on crew and cargo transportation
Half the ISS Budget
Cost of CO2
recycling
CO2 output
Launch:
$ / kg
$5,359
Launch:
$/g
$5
1000
Methane produced (Sabatier) 333
Number of people in space
g
$5,359
g
$1,785
6
Methane vented / day /
1998
person
Value methane vented / day $10,707.28
per week
$74,950.97
per month
$299,803.90
per year
$3,597,646.75
g
At least 600 million tons of water
ice at the lunar south pole.
(Mini-SAR / LRO)
LUNAR
ICE
H2O
% Relative % by total
Chemical name
mass
to H2O
5.60
Water
100
H2S
Hydrogen sulfide 16.75
Compound
NH3
SO2
C2H4
CO2
CH3OH
CH4
OH
Ammonia
Sulfur dioxide
Ethylene
Carbon dioxide
Methanol
Methane
Hydroxide
6.03
3.19
3.12
2.17
1.55
0.65
0.03
0.94
0.34
0.18
0.17
0.12
0.09
0.04
0.002
Follow
the carbon:
0.4 %
carbon by
mass
ISRU: In Situ Resource Utilization
Food: Don’t take it, make it
Take food
from Earth
Take a tree
from Earth
J. MIKE GRACE
13
Take a
seed
from Earth
LIfe Support Break-Even Analysis
Non-Regenerable
H2O, O2, Recovery and Food
Production
Closed
System
Equivalent
System
Mass (ESM*)
H2O & O2 Recovery
H2O Recovery
Mission Duration
Moon 2.0
Cyanotech, Hawaii
Spirulina
Complete protein containing all essential amino acids
Closed Spirulina lunar bioreactor
6 hour excavation of lunar ice regolith processed =
12,179 Kg (excavation at 1000 kg per 30 minutes.
Additional: Trace elements, Cofactors, Coenzymes
682 L of water (as H2O is
5.6% by mass in lunar ice)
14.61 kg of CO2 (as CO2 is
0.0012% by mass in lunar ice)
Spirulina 682g
/day/person
10.68kg of CO2
Supply of solar radiation regulation
1. Light penetration is impeded by selfshading and light absorption
2. Optimum irradiance
3. Photoinhibition
4. Zones of different levels of irradiance
5. Wavelengh max.
6. Incident light to absorbed light and
reflected light
Productivity determination
1. Growth rate
2. Light availability determines the rate of
photosynthesis and the productivity
Montague et al. (2012) International Journal of Astrobiology
Solar
energy- 20k35k lux
surface area
1 g/L per day
4-day batch cycle
682 L bioreactor
19
Growth of Synthetic Biology Startup Companies
The Synthetic
Biology Stack
Company formation
Application
Organism engineering
platforms
CAD Tools
Gene/Genome Synthesis
4
Opportunities for new space economies from biological ISRU
Design Reference Experiments and Missions (DREaMs): Orbital food production and cached consumable
1. Resource extraction
2. Storage of resources in
orbital depot
CO2
H2O
Asteroid
/ comet
Lunar
regolith ice
Martian
regolith ice
3. Food production & storage in orbit
CO2
H2O
Food
resources in
Food out
4. Transfer of cached food to
docking space craft
Workshop on CO2 Based
manufacturing.
Planetary sustainability
partnership opportunities.
Tech. demo partnering
opportunities.
Thank
you.
Thank you.
John Cumbers Ph.D [email protected], [email protected]
NASA Ames Space Portal and CEO SynBioBeta LLCc