NASA researching how to ‘live off the land’ in space

Plans on how to get to Mars are well underway, but what do we eat once we get there? According to NASA, we could just “live off the land” and utilize resources we find there.

 

NASA researchers at the Kennedy Space Center are currently looking at what they’re calling in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) as a way of surviving on other planets. This means harvesting and using the raw materials that we can find at our destinations.

 

“These new technological capabilities will enable NASA to become less dependent on Earth-based logistics and instead use local resources to maintain a sustained human presence in space,” said Josephine Burnett, director of Kennedy Space Center’s Exploration Research and Technology Programs organization.

 

Living off available resources

 

According to Jack Fox, chief of the Science and Technology Projects Division of the Exploration Research and Technology Programs Directorate at Kennedy Space Center, ISRU could lead to up to 40% spacecraft weight reduction. “We believe learning to live off available resources will significantly reduce the mass, cost and risk of near and long-term space exploration,” Fox said.

 

Fox also added that there will be abundant ice, metal, and regolith (the layer of loose material, like dust and soil, that covers solid rock) in planned NASA destinations. Regolith can be used for construction and has the potential to be up to three times stronger in compression than the cement used here on Earth.

 

Fuel cells can be powered by splitting up water into its component hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which are extremely efficient rocket propellants. This opens up the option of using the moon as a sort of gas station in the future, for longer space journeys.

 

Technology under development

 

The Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatiles Extraction (RESOLVE) payload is currently working on a Resource Prospector probe. As the name implies, it’s a rover that will map out lunar chemical elements and compounds, conduct drilling to get samples, and process water and chemicals.

 

Researchers are also working on Regolith Advanced Surface System Operations Robot (RASSOR), a robotic rover designed to travel across difficult terrain that can be used to collect samples or excavation.

 

On the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts are performing tests like NASA’s Veggie experiment, which looks at how to grow food in outer space.

 

The Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) aims to convert carbon dioxide from Mars’ atmosphere into oxygen while the Mars Environment Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) will focus on studying the atmospheric dust found on the planet. — TJD, GMA News