On-Site Resources Availability for Space Agriculture on Mars

Mars is the second target of our manned space flight next to the Moon, and possibly the most distant extraterrestrial body to which we could travel, land and explore within the next half century. The requirements and design of life support for a Mars mission are quite different from those being operated on near Earth orbit or prepared for a lunar mission, because of the long mission duration. A Mars mission must include at least 2.5 years for round trip travel, and a restricted opening of the launch window, both for forward and return flights once every two years. Precursor manned mission to Mars might be conducted with a small number of crew and a conservative life support system on the space ship. Once the scale of the manned mission is enlarged, an advanced bio-regenerative life support system provides an “economical” advantage over the open loop life support, based on cost comparison between the cumulative sum of consumables with the open loop system versus the initial investment for a recycling system. We further propose use of on-site resources to supplement loss of component materials in the recycling process. Reproducing recycling materials on an expanded scale is another advantage of the use of on-site resources for space agriculture.