Why Space Settlement & Food Science?
Our food science focus and our space settlement project seem like separate fields, but they are intricately linked. The design of closed loop systems is the common factor. In deep space you need everything to be a closed loop except for solar power inputs and thermal radiation output. You need to recycle air, water and every other physical resource needed for life support. On an asteroid, moon or another world you have minerals and if you are lucky water. These can be inputs but most of your problems remain. Solving design and systems problems for these extreme conditions is excellent material for our students. It also mirrors what we must achieve here on our small blue planet…
Here on Earth we rely on the environment to “close the loop” on most of what we do. Our inputs (clean air, fresh water, soil nutrients, pollinators, etc.) are often plentiful and free. Harmful outputs are released into “the open” of our planetary environment and just seem to go away. This is working less and less due to the massive, complex interdependent civilization we are building. We are starting to see pollinator insect populations collapse, poor air quality tainting crops. carcinogen levels climbing, microplastics in our water / food / bodies, etc.
Our cities depend on vast centralized farming operations that can be ruined not only by weather, but by near unpredictable economic events. Most cities have less than a week of food supply in stock. The normal big-agriculture systems already suffer massive food waste losses – often 30% or more on farm and much more further on towards the store. These already inefficient systems can suffer total losses if crops are destroyed or farmers can’t profitably bring any food to market. An example is when demand and thus prices fall through the growing season, it may not even be worth the effort to harvest anything. Farming with an eye only towards profit also causes large scale pollution, which often translates into the disruption of other food production and related industries.
Our civilization needs distributed food production. More centralization makes things even less efficient as has been seen over and over in many well intentioned government programs – we have centuries of evidence on that. One major solution is a distributed food system operating from local farm to local table. This doesn’t need to provide all the food, just a baseline of appropriate crops and support for an ecology healthy enough to support humanity. Without an urban biosphere that supports us humanity has a bleak future indeed. This also needs to be economically viable or it will not be implemented at scale. A solid business case can be made – local systems minimize distribution costs and distributes risk so massive failures are not as likely to occur. In many cases, traditional small farmers survive disaster because they have their own food to eat. However, there are many problems with traditional small plot agriculture. Some core solutions we pursue:
- Bioscience education for farmers is essential for understanding biomes and farm tech
- Capturing value on farms at a higher vertical level than selling raw produce
- Efficient allocation of materials, time, resources, effort as everything is systems
- Engineering appropriate technology with low cost, easy repairs and long service life
- Engineering biomes with rich biodiversity and predictable self-regulating trends
- Implementing circular cycles of inputs and outputs where possible – build closed loops
- Isolating crops from negative factors in the environment such as weather, pests, etc.
- Interaction options with economies driven by strategic decisions rather than necessity, building inventories with shelf life
An integrated system of food tech that isn’t overly dependent on high tech components, isn’t driven by industrial chemicals, etc. could make small farmers self-reliant and profitable. This goes beyond farming, requiring vertical integration into the production of goods that have long shelf life or capturing more value through restaurant retail. Using solar thermal and solar electric systems in appropriate roles is also key to our system designs. Some of our best food tech has already come from human space exploration efforts and there is more to follow. There is ample room for the improvement of food systems at all levels.
Download our SMART School slide deck for more information.
Our campuses are test beds to make advanced small farms, resilient to disasters, common in the developing world. We are designing for tropical and subtropical climates first, but our systems will be adaptable to most regions on Earth that do not have a prolonged winter. At the end of the day all people still need to eat. We need more innovation to ensure food security for everyone and our mission is to both document and develop food systems that make a difference.
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Space Science Going Forward: We are working with NGO partners at the early stages of real space systems development. The logistics of space travel must change in order for human exploration and settlement to progress further. Therefore advances in logistics, such as palatable shelf stable food, will benefit all humanity. Our work in the field is not limited to food systems, as a wide variety of low cost research systems for space science are viable. When new technology and dropping launch costs lower the barriers to entry for commercial firms, whole new space support industries will blossom here on Earth. This is happening in the near future.
EIO Units: We are currently developing EIO (Exovivaria Input / Output) units, starting with their components and research support systems. We often refer to food systems because food science interacts with so many stages of the “local farm to local table” system we are refining. Ultimately our entire project-driven curriculum is interdisciplinary, with fields and foci carefully chosen to explore and encourage innovation.
Space Mission Analog: As a later stage of our Mars Deca Direct project we plan a mission analog on campus. The mission includes the maintenance and operation of modular food systems (aeroponics, algaculture, aquaculture, exoviviaria, mycological) that mirror what will be implemented in space.
Earth comes first but we will go to the moon, Mars and the stars.
Food Systems and the Bioscience Revolution: One of the fields where we are just starting to engineer systems is in the biosciences. Our initial efforts will focus on biome engineering on our small experimental farm campus. Closed loop agronomy is one of our foci. This includes the fundamental bioscience knowledge that farmers need to understand why they are doing things and know the implications of using certain products (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.). This also gives our students and people around the world a solid foundation for what is coming: a new age of bioscience. Our interdisciplinary approach prepares students for a future in explosive growth fields beyond agronomy – from biomedical engineering to synthetic biology and more. Once we have our basecamp campus design operating well, expanded campus concepts include a greater emphasis on this undiscovered country – biological technologies of the near future.
A Project Driven Program: Students, whether working solo or in teams, are tasked with projects. Our students do not sit through near perpetual lectures, instead students are tasked to achieve results. In addition the on campus program is a media production environment. Every project is documented by the production of content, with minimal or no editing. Content both the documents the project and can be shared with the world. More produced, highly edited, media content spans two project categories in the SMART (Student. Media, Art, Research, Teams) program cycle. Whether it be a design project in Art, a video series in Media, a Research paper, students will be developing and / or testing products. Product development happens in every industry, everywhere and results are what matters. This includes an understanding of the cycles around the product, from nutrition for food to marketing for anything you want to see widely distributed. Students will be assigned select courses of academic study, but those will tend to be online and have verifiable results. This structure keeps our program interdisciplinary and helps spark creativity for generations of innovators to come.
We hope that you are as excited about studying space science on small experimental farms as we are!
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