Biological CO2 Recycling for Long-Term Space Exploration
Abstract
Long-term space missions will require rapidly deployable and sustainable strategies for air purification. Existing life support technologies are essential to maintaining the wellbeing of a spacefaring crew by exchanging toxic CO2 with breathable O2. Despite their importance, these systems (1) must be constantly resupplied with materials from Earth, limiting their long-term utility, (2) require significant weight and energy allocation on the vehicle, which limits the number of redundant systems that can be included, and most importantly (3) cannot be easily repaired if they fail. To enable long-term missions beyond low-Earth orbit, we must develop next-generation approaches to recycle gaseous CO2 waste into O2 without these drawbacks and limitations. On Earth, eons of Darwinian evolution have created biological machines that can extract CO2 and create biologically useful molecules while emitting breathable O2. By taking inspiration from Nature, we will develop similar biomolecular approaches to mitigate the limitations of existing life support technologies. However, these natural mechanisms are limited by the enzyme RuBisCO, which controls the rate-determining step in CO2 capture in photosynthesis by plants and cyanobacteria. We propose to use state-of-the-art laboratory methods to improve the catalytic efficiency of RuBisCO-mediated CO2 fixation. Our approach hinges on technologies that enhance biomolecule evolution rates by greater than1,000,000-fold as compared to natural Darwinian systems, thereby improving RuBisCO’s CO2 purification capabilities beyond the scope of Nature. In addition, the key role played by RuBisCO means that it directly influences growth rate and biomass accumulation in photosynthetic organisms. Our efforts to optimize RuBisCO will therefore have a concomitant and transformational impact on the development of sustainable approaches for long-term food crop production in extraterrestrial environments. Taken together, success in these efforts will create strategies for readily deployable air purification and sustainable food generation needed for long-term survival beyond Earth.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 29, 2024
- Source ID
- FA95502310116
Entities
People
- Ahmed H Badran
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Scripps Research
- United States Air Force