Advanced Life Support Systems in Lunar and Martian Environments Utilizing a Higher Plant Based Engineering Paradigm

Active research at the John F. Kennedy Space Center is ongoing to demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing a higher plant based engineering paradigm for advanced life support in a Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS). Such a higher plant based system would ideally utilize the plants for a direct food source, for gas exchange, water reclamation and the plant residuals in a complex biological resource recovery scheme. The Kennedy system has been designed the CELSS Breadboard Project. Such an engineering paradigm utilizes a “breadboard” approach of developing independent systems that are evaluated autonomously and are later interconnected - hence the use of the “breadboard” terminology. Such a scheme will enable evaluation of an advanced life support system methodology that may have uses in a life support system for habitats as outposts on the Moon or Mars.