development of pre treatments for the
growth and survival of crops under
Martian soil conditions commonly the
movie the Martian is talked about when
they hear about my research however I
can tell you that sustaining life on
Mars is about more than whether a plant
will grow what you’re supposed to be
seeing is a fly through of a possible
habitation module on Mars it is a closed
ecological system that has been
transplanted from Earth to Mars an
ecological system is a system that is
composed of living organisms and
nonliving components that interact both
in competitive and supportive ways close
simply means that the system has been
sealed off from at the everything
outside of it
the system works best when the community
of living organisms is made up of many
different species
a properly known as biodiversity a key
component that is necessary to mitigate
the risk of failure for any ecological
system anywhere but why should we build
such a system on Mars
why couldn’t we build say another
International Space Station for a
habitation module and have food shipped
in via supply chain well it’s a good
question to ask let me tell you my
reasoning it can be said that one of the
reasons that people have survived
throughout the history of the earth is
due to them being able to adapt quickly
to unplanned events humans have been
able to survive and recover from these
events from obtaining resources that
they have found outside of their
localities humans have evolved within
this context earliest archaeological
records have humans living in small
groups of hunter-gatherers and
localities in which they have become
familiar with the local resources what
did they do when the local resources
how about later humans that evolved into
agrarian societies what did they do when
the crop field that they were planting
it has a blight and wiped out all their
crops even in modern cities today where
we have an urban ecological system that
came from this adaptive process what did
they do when a natural disaster like a
hurricane hits now let’s consider a
modern city it is an urban ecological
system that only that does not only
consist of the urban proper but also all
of the surrounding lands so in the city
proper we have what we could call the
habitation zone the habitation zone is
the place where people live and work in
a safe and healthy environment beyond
this we have the agricultural zone where
people can plant the food that they need
to survive and then outside of these two
zones we have the beginning of
wilderness or what I would call the
ecological buffer zone this zone
provides ecological services that are
used to support the agricultural and
habitation zones while also providing a
biodiversity that is needed for
competitive redundancy to mitigate risk
this model is called the three zone
model a system I developed in my
sophomore year that is currently being
used by my company to develop habitation
modules for space exploration such as
this one I think we would all agree that
such a system on Mars would be really
cool so let’s take a closer look inside
the dome we would find a variety of
plant and bug life that has been
carefully chosen based off the needs of
the ecological system as well as the
needs of the crew however as we go about
attempting to establish this system some
plants who will succeed while many are
likely to fail this is due to the plants
evolving into a unique Martian ecology
through being exposed to higher
radiation levels lower atmospheric
pressure and lower gravity so what will
our crew do they will have to adapt into
a unique Martian Akana
me they will have to go out and find the
food bearing plants in the ecological
buffer zone and domesticate them into
the agricultural zone aha this one’s
working good one of the most common
questions that I am asked is how will I
go about achieving this objective I
agree it’s a daunting problem Institute
resource limitations a non-existent
economy and extreme space climate and
extremely long and expensive supply
chain risks limiting human expansion and
settlement to anywhere outside of Earth
so however when you think about it
really the only significant difference
between Mars and say drought-stricken
Somalia is lower gravity lower
atmospheric pressure lower light levels
lower temperature higher radiation
levels and a longer supply chain yeah
beyond these the Mars food security
problem is very similar to the earth
food security problem so seriously
wouldn’t it makes sense to fall solve
the space food security problem by first
solving problems with food security on
earth
with dwindling agricultural resources
affecting our farms local economic
collapse affecting our inner cities in
rural towns climate change affecting
regional food supplies and political and
geographically challenging supply chains
preventing available food from reaching
millions of people in both developing
and developed nations we are in need of
more sustainable solutions for growing
food and feeding people on earth so when
asked how I’m going to go about doing
this
I tell people the solution is easy we
first have to solve world hunger but
seriously the food security problem in
places like Somalia are just a little
more simple than the Mars or moon
problem the Somalia problem is a lack of
Natural Resources problem a local
economic collapse problem a climate
change problem and a political supply
chain problem but three things that
Somalia does have an abundance
our dirt rocks and sand if we use the
sand and rocks to create building
materials using 3d printing technology
we can construct a system that
incorporates sustainable innovations to
reduce agricultural resource
replenishment requirements to what could
be provided locally creating an eco
agricultural system that can be made
with local plants local microorganisms
and local bugs with the system in place
we can bootstrap a local economy and not
have to worry about establishing and
maintaining a supply chain you may say
how is this different from building in
green house a green house relies on a
supply chain to bring materials into the
system it is not self-sufficient meaning
that is not able to function and be
productive by itself indefinitely the
quasi closed ecological system we could
build and maintain with the local
community is built to be self-sustaining
and provide a local agricultural system
from which the local community can
benefit but what’s a little bit easier
than this how about a remote remote
location in a developed nation such as
the Arctic Circle of Canada or Alaska
the Inuit people are having their
traditional food supplies and economic
activity wiped out by climate change and
yet they don’t want to leave their
homeland in order to stay many are
having to rely on extremely expensive
prepackaged foods that are shipped in
from production companies in North
America
their major problem with growing their
food year-round is the lack of sunlight
for half the year and cold tempers from
cold temperatures for most of the year
we can build equal agricultural systems
that can function year-round by closing
off the system from the surrounding
environment to reduce on heat loss and
providing sustainable lighting systems
the system could then provide a local
source of food and allow the community
to boost their economy by no longer
having to send their money out of local
circulation but still what is a little
bit easier than this
how about an inner-city in a developed
nation such as Mexico City or the
southside of Richmond Virginia places
like this are considered food deserts
with no extensive local agricultural
system no supermarkets and a high
jobless rate with depressed local
economies the biggest challenge in such
locations is building an agricultural
base that is self-sufficient enough to
boost the economy such a system will not
last if food growers have to send the
money earned from their customers
outside of the system to obtain costly
resources to run their farms we can
build systems that require just enough
new resources to replace the food value
leaving the system the local resources
we can use include an abandoned piece of
land or lot the soil on-site local and
traditional plants and crops the
knowledge of the people in the community
and local fertilizer power and farm
maintenance businesses that are present
or could be established a depressed
community could then rebuild their
economy on this agricultural basis and
have the ability to grow their own fresh
and clean food year-round but what is a
little easier than this you can kind of
see where I’m going with this small
farms and food growers in developed
nations are struggling with staying in
business the cost of fertilizer and fuel
limited resource of water and the
competition of conglomerated industrial
firms have been driving family farms out
of business for decades the problem is
only getting worse and where we lose
small farms and food growers we depress
rural communities and eliminate local
food sources we are currently working on
developing sustainable innovative
solutions to 14 functional resource
areas such as water and waste
reclamation and retention and light
availability 365 days per year that
small farms and food growers will be
able to use to decribe
decrease the cost of business increase
yield and remain operational in
deep space ecology is a company that
people in the space industry would say
is a new space company the primary core
goal of new space companies is earth
first we create solutions for problems
on earth first for later spin into space
applications such as creating
sustainable food systems on Mars and who
knows maybe we’ll start building
habitation systems for the oceans and
find ourselves living in the subsurface
oceans of Europa the possibilities are
limitless these are the voyages of deep
space ecology our 10-year mission to
provide solutions for food security on
earth spread life throughout our solar
system to boldly go into uncharted
waters where no one has gone before
thank you [Applause]