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Since the earliest days of manned space ventures, the search for authentic analogs of space exploration have been investigated. The primary purpose for these analogs has been to reduce risk and cost. There are many similarities between operational space habitats and ocean habitats and these can be significantly exploited to provide an efficient terrestrial based model for testing space bound systems and crews. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration embarked on such a seafloor analog to the space station in 1969 called Tektite. Tektite investigated a single mission component, crew psychology. But the range of valid components is considerably wider ranging, including analogous system design, parallel operational functionality and mission compatibility.

For decades, the cold, dry valleys of Antarctica have been referenced as the closest terrestrial analog to Mars. Recent attention has also been focused on the seafloor as a potential analog to space exploration scenarios. As these terrestrial analogs have received more attention, some of the research, development and economic burden has been shifted from traditional sources to valid ground-based test platforms, conserving considerable, and increasingly limited, resources. Yet, there is still a need to make closer assessments of terrestrial analogs. A strategy of analog development and objective assessment will enable not only a better evaluation of the analog itself, but will allow for the development of extremely effective analog missions with high pay-off potentials.

An operational Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) may one day be used as a significant component for an advanced life support system for deep space applications, such as moon or Mars exploration. Active research has been ongoing since 1978 to develop and understand key components of this technology at universities and National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) centers around the United States. At the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, a large plant growth chamber has been producing higher plants since 1988. This chamber has proven highly successful at producing growing crops from germination to harvest, including wheat, soybean, potato and lettuce. This 113 cubic meter chamber is the largest such closed, controlled growth chamber in the world.

Engineering strategies for advanced life support systems to be used on Lunar and Mars bases involve a wide spectrum of approaches. These range from purely physical-chemical life support strategies to purely biological approaches. Within the context of biological based systems, a bioengineered system can be devised that would utilize the metabolic mechanisms of plants to control the rates of CO2 uptake and O2 evolution (phytosynthesis) and water production (transpiration). Such a mechanism of external engineering control has become known as “throttling”. Research conducted at the John F. Kennedy Space Center's Controlled Ecological Life Support System Breadboard Project has demonstrated the potential of throttling these fluxes by changing environmental parameters affecting the plant processes. Among the more effective environmental throttles are: light and CO2 concentration for controlling the rate of photosynthesis and humidity and CO2 concentration for controlling transpiration.

Active research at the John F. Kennedy Space Center is ongoing to demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing a higher plant based engineering paradigm for advanced life support in a Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS). Such a higher plant based system would ideally utilize the plants for a direct food source, for gas exchange, water reclamation and the plant residuals in a complex biological resource recovery scheme. The Kennedy system has been designed the CELSS Breadboard Project. Such an engineering paradigm utilizes a “breadboard” approach of developing independent systems that are evaluated autonomously and are later interconnected - hence the use of the “breadboard” terminology. Such a scheme will enable evaluation of an advanced life support system methodology that may have uses in a life support system for habitats as outposts on the Moon or Mars.