Kiverdi relies on microorganisms to convert (CO²), along with other simple mineral nutrients and gases, into raw materials for everyday products, such as food, clothes, personal care items, industrial goods, and, ultimately, biofuels, Dyson explains.īasically, they mix the (CO²) and other ingredients into a large vat, where the gases are consumed by microorganisms, which grow and produce proteins and oils. We have really leveraged a lot of that NASA work.” “Since that time there have been so many advances in biotechnology, we asked the question: can we apply modern tools of biotechnology to this old research? We happily discovered it was possible. “What we did at Kiverdi was pick up where they left off,” says Dyson. “We were very interested in developing technical solutions that would help us combat climate change,” Dyson recalls, and “we thought the idea to use microbes that grow in the dark on carbon dioxide, with higher efficiency, and using minimal space, was a great idea.”ĭyson cites the 1966 report, along with additional NASA-funded studies published in 19, as influential on her and Reed. It was with this in mind that Lisa Dyson and John Reed, cofounders of San Francisco Bay area-based Kiverdi, came across the NASA research on life support in 2008. Litchfield of the Battelle Memorial Institute notes that further research into continuous cultures was needed but says it “should then be possible to maintain continuous cultures at high efficiencies for very long periods of time.”Īlthough NASA has yet to send any astronauts on any years-long missions without resupply, the work the Agency did to advance life-support systems has inspired some entrepreneurs right here on Earth.Įarth is much larger than a spaceship, of course, but it is ultimately still a closed system, and like on that theoretical space journey NASA was working on all those years ago, accumulated (CO²) is a growing problem. The report notes that NASA had already studied Hydrogenomonas for three years, in part to work on maintaining a continuous, high growth rate operating at the highest efficiency. That, along with its higher use of (CO²) than algal systems, meant it was up to 15 times more efficient overall. Unlike algal and other plant systems that require light for photosynthesis, the bacteria could grow in the dark. “First hydrogen and oxygen are combined to obtain energy then (CO²) is reduced to form cell material,” Jagow and Thomas explain. One of the most promising, both for its high efficiency in recycling carbon dioxide (CO²) into useable by-products and for its low power and space requirements, relied on hydrogen-fixing bacteria, focusing particular study on a genus of bacteria called Hydrogenomonas. The 1966 report, titled “The Closed Life-Support System,” devoted nine chapters, each written by a different team of researchers, to studying various options for and challenges in taking waste products and turning them into breathable air, clean water, and food. For a 10-man, three-year mission, this amounts to over 100,000 pounds without considering the weight of containers.” As that same report noted, “metabolic wastes-mainly evaporative water loss, urine, utility water, expired carbon dioxide, and feces-amount to 10 to 14 pounds per man per day. Thomas wrote in a paper from a 1966 report published by Ames Research Center.Īmong other challenges, any life-support system needed to find a way to make good use of the waste products the astronauts would produce. And for just as long, the Agency has known it needed “life-support systems that minimize as much as possible the expendable materials carried in the spacecraft,” Lockheed Missiles and Space Company’s R. Now, thanks to an innovative start-up, that life-support research could provide part of the solution to Earth’s climate problems, too.Īs far back as the 1960s, even before Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon, NASA was envisioning missions deeper into space. NASA has many researchers focused on the carbon cycle on Earth-and how it contributes to climate change-but the Space Agency has also spent plenty of time delving into what to do with excess carbon in the closed environment of a spacecraft.
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