Abstract
Closed ecological systems (CES) represent a promising approach to long-term human life support (LS) for space expeditions and settlements such as a Mars manned expedition or a Lunar based research facility. In such remote, high risk ventures, sustainability and reliability of the integrated human-life support system (HLSS) are essential. However, facing possible overpopulation problem, Earth' environment can become more extreme for human beings in the nearest future. The biosphere of the Earth is a unique life support system (LSS). This relatively thin layer of biomass and other buffers provide all necessary conditions for all life forms' evolution, including humans. The biosphere can be viewed as highly reliable (during relatively short periods of time) self-sustainable system: life on Earth exists within a comparably narrow range of conditions for billions of years. All existing experimental facilities for research in the field of closed ecological life support systems (CELSS) such as BIOS-3M (Russia), Biosphere-2 (USA), CEEF (Japan) and others utilize principles and processes of bio-regeneration observed in the Biosphere of the Earth. Listed CELSS systems already demonstrated difficulty of sustainable and continuing life support functions implementations limited by insufficient (buffer) resources and incomplete closure of material recirculation. With the scattering of Earth's resources, humanity might meet similar problems on a global scale. Modeling (theoretical and experimental) of Earth's biosphere provides us with the tools for investigating such global processes in relatively short periods of time under controllable conditions which can be thoroughly monitored. Obvious benefits of artificial CELSS experiments are the possibilities for understanding global scale problems without irreversible harming of our planet's primary LSS - the biosphere. It became clear that classic control theory is only partially applied to closed ecosystems control. Therefore, understanding limits of stable functioning of CELSS and integrated study of control theory (including classic approach) which can propose certain solutions for control methods and algorithms are necessary. Nevertheless, the complete understanding of such complex problems caused by human population growth is impossible without integration of all existing fundamental methods of Earth sciences and experimental modeling based on small scale eco-spheres approach. This integrative approach opens at the same time a wide avenue for multiple international collaborations.
Published Version
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