One of the challenges of sending a manned-mission to Mars, which the U.S has been looking forward to do several years from now, involves the payload required to support what would likely be hundreds of days of travel and stay of six crews on the Red Planet.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) estimates that for every pound of payload that astronauts embarking on a long-term space exploration would have to bring with them, which would include essentials such as food, oxygen and medicine, the space agency would also have to launch an additional 99 pounds mostly in the form of fuel.
A group of researchers, however, have come up with an idea that could reduce the supporting payload and thereby also the costs involved in a long-term manned mission. In the study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface on Nov. 5, Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division (PBD) director Adam Arkin and colleagues proposed using synthetic biology to make space explorations more economical and viable.
The researchers said that during manned missions in extraterrestrial territories such as in Mars, synthetic biological processes could turn minerals and gases from the Martian atmosphere, as well as soil and human waste and into food, medicine, fuel and other useful materials.
The researchers added that crew members could consume nutritious food made from the bacteria called spirulina and turn to the microbe Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum to produce methane and oxygen fuel. Bacteria can also be used to replenish pharmaceuticals and minerals can be converted into raw materials that can be used in 3D printing using the bacteria Cupriavidus necator.
"During flight, the ability to augment fuel and other energy needs, to provide small amounts of needed materials, plus renewable, nutritional and taste-engineered food, and drugs-on-demand can save costs and increase astronaut health and welfare," Arkin said. "At an extraterrestrial base, synthetic biology could make even more effective use of the catalytic activities of diverse organisms."
Arkin and colleagues said that based on their calculation, synthetic biology can significantly reduce the payloads of space missions by 56 percent for fuel, 38 percent for food, 85 percent for the materials needed to build shelter for six crew members, and 100 percent for pharmaceuticals, compared with adopting a non-biological approach.
"This paper has reviewed existing biological processes to demonstrate that they constitute a competitive yet non-traditional technology that is capable of processing volatiles and waste resources readily available on lunar and Martian space missions," the researchers wrote.
