Engineering of closed ecological system in space and inter-organismal interactions.
Space agriculture is a concept of synthesis and operation of closed ecological system for controlling living environment and supplying materials in order to sustain life and to meet metabolic needs of space crew. It revitalizes metabolites and other excretion of crew for their recycled usage. It is an advanced concept for life support for long and large scaled manned space missions, where open loop system for materials cycle is not feasible to apply. Several issues, such as cost-benefit analysis with considering benefits of amenity and psychological factors of crew, are discussed in this essay, together with reliability and productivity of biological systems. Studies on plant physiology for inter-organismal interaction contribute to design work for space agriculture, and associate with our engagements to our future, sustainable development of our civilization both on the earth and extending to outer space.
Yamashita
Masamichi
M
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Yohinodai, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan. yamashita@surc.isas.ac.jp
D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods; D018504:Ecological Systems, Closed; D006801:Humans; D008021:Life Support Systems / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D010675:Pheromones; D010944:Plants; D013026:Space Flight / Q000191:economics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018531:Spacecraft; D014893:Weightlessness
D010675:Pheromones