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One of the major goals of NASA's Advanced Life Support (ALS) is to evaluate the feasibility of using crop plants in Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS) for providing food oxygen carbon dioxide removal, water purification and water recycling to support long space missions such as Lunar or Mars base. This work based on all the experience done on aerobic biodegradation kinetics of organic solid wastes on earth have demonstrated that biodegradation of organic solid wastes generated in long space mission scenarios is a technological alternative for recycling and recovery these wastes-inedible crop residues and other wastes- in a cost effective manner. The product is of high quality, it is enriched in nutrients and organic material ready to use as a solid plant growth material alone, mixed with extraterrestrial regolith, or as liquid after leaching with water for hydroponic plant growth, both to support any regenerative life support system in space.
About the author
Javier Christian Ramírez Pérez è ingegnere chimico, con un master e un dottorato in ingegneria e scienze ambientali (Rutgers University, NJ-USA). Area di ricerca: Biotecnologie ambientali, Chimica ambientale e Sviluppo energetico sostenibile. Attualmente è visiting professor presso il dipartimento di fisica dell'Università di San Paolo (Brasile).
