And like astronauts aboard the space station today, future crew members will have to exercise for several hours each day to maintain bone and muscle mass in reduced or zero gravity. Every item that is loaded aboard must be carefully packaged with recycling, repurposing and reusing as a top priority. Inside a deep space habitat, the life support systems will have to recycle at least 98 percent of water consumed and 75 percent of oxygen from the carbon dioxide that astronauts exhale. This operational shift to reduce our dependence on our home planet requires careful research, concept studies, and prototyping, and validation to ensure that our next-generation space systems maximize efficiencies and minimize waste – not entirely different from efforts to preserve our environment here on “spaceship Earth”. New, deep space habitation systems will not have the benefit of receiving supplies from Earth – or at least not as often. The station has been a continuous orbital home to more than 220 astronauts since 2000, spurring an active economy in low Earth orbit to deliver food, air, water, spare parts and other necessities from nearby Earth. NASA has a long history of space habitation studies and a validated proof of concept in the International Space Station. Where will future astronauts live during Artemis missions on the Moon or during the years-long roundtrip missions to Mars and other destinations in the solar system? How will these habitats be constructed – and what systems will outfit them to sustain human life in the harsh environment of deep space?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |