Previous postings have discussed NASA's Contained Environment Life Support Systems (CELSS), so it's time to share some of the limelight with the European Space Agency's MELIiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) research program. With MELIiSSA, we bloggers will never need to leave home again assuming there will be a household version someday. All we'll need is a computer, an internet connection and MELIiSSA, and life will become a carefree, digital bliss.
MELIiSSA "aims to develop the technology required for a future biological life support system for long term manned space missions." In fact, MELISSA claims to go "further than other recycling systems used on Mir or the International Space Station which purify water and recycle exhaled carbon dioxide", by attempting to "recycle organic waste for food production." Most of the pictures of MELISSA are not very pretty, but the MELISSA loop schematic (upper left) illustrates MELISSA's approach. MELISSA utilizes five compartments that provide an entire ecosystem loop from human food production, to human consumption to recycling human wastes:
Compartment 1: The Liquefying Compartment
Compartment 2: The Photoheterotrophic Compartment
Compartment 3: The Nitrifying Compartment
Compartment 4: The Photoautotophic Compartment
Compartment 5: The Crew
What I like about MELISSA is that technology transfer is a built-in phase of the program (Phase 4). Presently, a great deal of biological waste produced by human is not only completely wasted, but becoming a severe landfill and human health problem. MELISSA techhnology can potentially be both scaled up and down to profitably utilize this waste. MELISSA offers some exciting opportunities.
The ESA claims that a Belgian company has already used MELISSA research to "devise methods to remove as much as 85% of the solid waste left over after waste-water treatment and to convert it into water and methane gas, which can be used to generate electricity." (See ESA posting). The Phase 4 page lists several other examples. For more information on potential opportunities with MELISSA, see Technology Transfer Programme Office.
Notes:
Quotes are from the MELIiSSA website viewed today, unless otherwise noted.
Image: MELIiSSA Loop, courtesy of ESA.