Systems Studies of NJ-NSCORT for BLSS: An Overview 972294

The New Jersey NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training (NJ-NSCORT) for Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS) was established at Rutgers University, with participation from Stevens Institute of Technology, in May 1996. Four research teams including Biomass Production, Food Processing and Nutrition, Waste Processing, and Systems Studies and Modeling were assembled to study issues related to human life support associated with long duration space missions. Each team is conducting a number of projects that address specific problems to the design of BLSS.

The current tasks of the Systems Studies and Modeling (SSM) team are: to establish communications among NJ-NSCORT research teams, to develop system analysis methodologies, to develop hybrid fundamental/empirical models for individual subsystems of a BLSS, and to develop functional modules to manipulate information related to BLSS. For the systems studies part of SSM team, an integrated automation-culture-environment analysis cyber environment (acesys) is being developed to facilitate the study of BLSS. Preliminary study has been conducted to identify the key components of this systems analysis environment. The acesys consists of an input mechanism for project information, a set of databases for storing information (informational modules), a display capability for data presentation, a discussion forum, and a collection of applets for processing information (functional modules). This paper provides an overview on the development of acesys system analysis methodologies and hardware/software configurations for implementing acesys on the internet.