Afternoon everyone. My name is Morgan Irons. I am a student at Duke

University and the founder and chief science officer of Deep Space Ecology. I

am currently working on a dual thesis in environmental science and biology.

(CLICK) My biological research consists of testing of pre-treatments for the

growth and survival of crops under regolith conditions, for which I started

writing the experimental procedure in September of 2015 and commenced

preparation and testing in January of 2016. Although I have learned many

interesting things about what to do and what not to do, and though this

information is vital to being well prepared and equipped to grow plants on

Mars, I can tell you that sustaining life on Mars is about more than whether a

plant will grow.

My talk today is not on my current biological experiments, but is on my

environmental science thesis that I started preparing in January of 2015, on

the development of closed ecological systems for sustainable space

habitation. Today I am going to address what my environmental science

research indicates are requirements for establishing a permanent human

presence on Mars.

So to begin, what is a closed ecological system?

An ecological system is a system involving the interactions between a

1

community of living organisms in a particular area and its nonliving

environment. A closed ecological system, or CES, is an ecosystem that is

sealed off from everything outside of it. You can imagine why this would be

important in space, considering humans and plants cannot survive in a

vacuum. Living on Mars, a CES would provide a separate biosphere for living

things, such as plants, the microorganisms that help plants grow, the humans

that need plants to thrive, and the air, soil, water, and energy that support the

cycles of life.

1

Much of what is known today about closed ecological systems for use in space

is based on research done by the Soviet Union beginning in the 1960s;

however, the idea of developing a CES for space habitation was written about

in 1895 when Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published his book “Dreams of the Earth

and Sky,” in which he depicts and details a CES on a space station.

In the U.S. during the 1960s, NASA was first considering the possibility of

using bioregenerative systems in life support, but it wouldn’t be until 1978 that

they initiated their Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems program, or

CELSS.

In conjunction, a group of mainly ecologists known as the Botkin group met to

determine how ecology would play a role in bioregenerative and life support

systems. Partnering with NASA, they came up with three foundational

elements for developing a space-based:

2

1. The life support system would resemble a terrestrial farm.

2. Humans would be a major component.

3. The purpose would be to support human life.

NASA would go on to use these foundational elements as a bases for future

approaches. However, not everyone was thinking along these same lines.

3

Biosphere 2 decided to utilize actual biomes in its CES design. It incorporated

seven different Earth biotopes in one structure, those biotopes being: tropical

forest, ocean, desert, steppe, field and farm, and the human habitat for a crew

of 8 persons. The first mission was in 1991.

The Biosphere 2 experiments received criticism for their endeavors to recreate

earth in a closed structure. Biosphere 2 ended up having to be opened due to

the system experiencing ecological system malfunctions, such as:

4

•Environmental disruption driven by the unnatural adjacency of the seven

biomes.

•Technological disruption from the curing cement from the enclosure absorbing

oxygen.

•Biological disruption due to decomposition in excess of growth in ratios not

found in the natural development of floral systems.

•Psychological disruption of humans due to the stresses of a maladjusted

ecological system.

What we learned from Biosphere 2 is that setting up a self-sustaining

ecosystem is about more than putting a bunch of nature under a dome. And

yet, the Biosphere 2 experiment seems to try to embrace the concept that

Russian researcher Kamshilov worked to popularize (CLICK): “The stability of

the biosphere as a whole, and its ability to evolve, depend. . . on the fact that it

is a system of relatively independent biogeocoenoses (biomes) . . . which

compete for habitat, substance, and energy and so provides for the evolution

of the biosphere as a whole.”

5

Since Biosphere 2, many more efforts have commenced to enable humans to

live in isolation from their daily Earth habitat while meeting the space mission

criteria.

Human models have been specifically designed to test systems closed to

external human interaction. While helpful in predicting the mental and

physiological affects of long-term isolation, these models are conducted within

the natural environment of Earth, and are not meant to test ecological

feasibility.

Human-Technology models test the ability of engineered systems to replace

the functions of Earth’s natural ecosystems. These systems work well when

there are regular resupply runs and a means for humans to get back to

civilization quickly in the event of a technological failure or accident. For

example, the ISS receives regular resupply shipments from Earth to replace

food stores, air scrubber chemical packs, and water purification filters and

consumables, and to haul away trash, spent cartridges, and replaced parts.

The ISS also has the Soyuz capsules that can be used by the crew to escape

quickly if necessary and be back on the surface of Earth within hours.

Human-Technology-Biology models introduce bio-regenerative technology in

place of man-made technology in an attempt to reduce the need for man-made

6

consumables and repair parts. This particular model considers the need to

reduce the cost of the supply chain to remote locations, such as Mars. It helps

make human space exploration more politically palatable. These new models

also start using concepts like in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) and in-situ

repair and fabrication (ISRF) to reduce the cost of pre-fabricating parts on

Earth and shipping them to remote locations such as Mars. The general idea

is to ship just the right selection of technology and biology to Mars in order to

establish a mostly Earth-independent mission. NASA’s definition of Earth

independence is 1100 days. But can human-tech-bio models truly accomplish

this goal?

6

Well, let’s see. The schematic on the slide is from a patent that was issued for an ISRU plan. It is designed to support a Martian greenhouse and/or hydroponics systems for growing food. It is a typical engineered system, meeting standard engineering principles of function and performance, redundancy as needed to mitigate the risk of downtime, and do so at minimal life-cycle cost. It eliminates the need for some spare parts by incorporating bio-regenerative technology, thus reducing earth-to-mars supply chain costs. I would bring your attention to the portion of the system that uses microalgae to produce oxygen (CLICK).

Consider such a system operating on a Mars base. All systems are up and running and we have been growing food. We are near the end of our initial 1100 day run at which point we will get a resupply of some spare parts from Earth. Suddenly, Microalgae Bioreactor Line 1 goes down. (CLICK) No problem. This is a critical system, so we have a redundant Line 2 we can bring up and operate while trouble-shooting and fixing Line 1. Then line 2 goes down (CLICK) before we have even started trouble-shooting the problems with Line 1.

Given time to investigate what went wrong, we would discover that all of the microalgae died in both lines. (CLICK) What killed the algae? Did the epigenetics or genetics evolve to a non-functional state in the alien environment of lower gravity and higher ambient radiation? Is there an alien bio-vector present in the Martian environment that we had not discovered yet and that killed the algae? Maybe a trace chemical in the Martian water? (CLICK) This kind of problem takes years for biologists to figure out, but our Martian explorers don’t have years. They have to make a decision now on whether to do a forced evacuation.

7

So what is the real problem in this thought experiment? Is it that (CLICK) we

did not know about this adverse effect of the Martian environment on the

microalgae? Or is it that we (CLICK) did not have sufficient resilience to adapt

to a problem that we did not predict or know about? I suggest that answer 2 is

the more productive answer to consider. After all, we will never know

everything we would like to know before we send humans to Mars. So

(CLICK) how do we make a human stay on mars more sustainable? In other

words, no need to do forced emergency evacuations.

8

To understand this, we need to briefly review the history of human adaptation and social development.

(CLICK) Earliest archeological records have humans in small groups of hunter-gatherers, living in a locality in which they have become familiar with use of the natural resources.

(CLICK) From there, humans adapted and evolved to an agrarian society in which they had a central support village and surrounding crop fields.

(CLICK) Modern cities are what eventually came from this adaptive process.

It can be said that one of the reasons for human survival is their ability to adapt quickly to unplanned events. (CLICK) The tribe of humans living in a cave run out of local resources due to overuse. They need to find more resources. Where do they find them? They find them out in the wilderness outside of their known locality. (CLICK) Later in history, a local village is hit by a blight against their main food crop. What do they do? They go into the wilderness to find the food resources they need to survive until they can get to their next harvest. (CLICK) Recently, when New York City Metro Area was hit by Hurricane Sandy, supplies and resources came in from beyond the immediate agricultural zone surrounding the city. (CLICK) These examples reveal that the evolved ecological systems of Earth have always enabled human adaptation. Humans have evolved within this context.

9

The point is that you cannot establish a human ecological system that will

actually support the survival of the humans without something that is called

“Competitive Redundancy”. So the problem with the bio-regenerative system

in our thought experiment is that it was designed with supportive redundancy

in mind. Indeed, this is the most efficient engineered system one could build

on Earth, a non-alien environment with all of the resources and spare parts

relatively nearby. But nature reveals to us that supportive redundancy can

lead to system failure or degradation.

There are natural ecosystems on Earth that function in a supportive-redundant

system, having evolved in isolated locations, undisturbed by outside (alien)

influences. These natural systems have components that are the only things

that fill their respective niches. They have no competitors. They are either the

only provider of a resource or they are the only consumer of a resource.

However, if a disturbance occurs to such a system to weaken or kill a

component that is the only thing that fills its niche, the entire ecosystem can

collapse.

Thus, it is key to have a resilient system that has multiple living organisms

competing for resources and multiple supplying the same resource. (CLICK)

This way, if a particular organism dies, competitors can take up their market

share, thus preventing the ecosystem from collapsing.

10

In summary, there are two weaknesses in standard engineered systems that

follow the Human-Technology-Biology model. (CLICK) All past and existing

attempts at designing systems that will permanently sustain human life in

space with minimal to no support from Earth are at high risk of failing unless

these two weaknesses are resolved.

I propose a model that seeks to solve these two weaknesses.

11

The Three Zone Model is based upon the way humans have always lived on Earth, as I describedearlier. Consider a city. An urban ecological system not only has the city as a human habitation zone, but also has an agricultural zone both within and outside of it and a buffer zone of wild nature that encloses both the city and the agricultural areas.

(CLICK) The habitation zone is needed to provide humans with a safe and healthy place to live and work.

(CLICK) The agricultural zone provides a place where humans can grow the food they need.

(CLICK) The ecological buffer zone provides ecological services needed to keep the habitation zone and agricultural zone healthy, while also providing a biodiversity that is needed for competitive redundancy. I don’t have the time to go into the landscape theory and ecological principles behind the importance of an ecological buffer zone, but I can tell you that it provides movement of energy and nutrient cycles throughout the system. Where without it, the system would become stagnate, as in biosphere 2. (CLICK)

Consider for a moment a mission to Mars that builds a system following this model. The mission uses modules with fully engineered ECLSS systems as habitation zones. The mission plans to have thirty crops in its agricultural zone that will be planted in both hydroponic and soil systems. The mission also has over a thousand different seeds for plants that grow on Earth in dry and cool climates. We build the structures, set up the zones, harvest the in-situ resources from the Martian environment, plant the agriculture in a planned fashion, and plant the 1000+ species of other plants in a scattered fashion in our ecological buffer zone. Over the course of attempting to grow the crops, we discover that, even though all thirty of our agriculture species did well in testing on Earth, 20 out of 30 of them fail on Mars. It is likely that we could have such a miserable success rate due to the fact that the plants are growing in an environment that is alien to their previous evolutionary path. What will likely cause the most challenge is that the microbiology that we bring with us that is needed to support the growing of plants will evolve quickly in the alien Martian environment and some will change the way they function, adversely impacting the plants and humans. So what will our humans do? They will need to adapt. They will need to go out into the wilderness of the ecological buffer zone, find the plants that are succeeding in the alien environment and domesticate them into the agricultural zone. The plants that are failing will be moved out into the ecological buffer zone where they will be allowed to grow wild and compete.

12

Thus, the third aspect of this model that raises the chance of success for our

permanent Mars settlement is providing our humans with enough resources to

adapt to the alien environment.

As the plants that we take and the humans that stay on Mars continue to live

and adapt on Mars, (CLICK) they will evolve into a uniquely Martian ecological

system through ecological succession.

13

My company, Deep Space Ecology, has been working on the designs for a

CES that meets the criteria of the Three Zone Model.

The Mars Epoch X1 design is based on the standard circular dome model.

(CLICK) It’s dimensions of 170-m in diameter are the minimum that we believe

to be necessary to support a base with eight humans while mitigating the risk

of failure of settlement continuance.

14

The dome area contains both the agricultural zone and the ecological buffer

zone, laid out in a pattern that maximizes the distribution of ecological services

to the areas used for agriculture. The dome is transparent and provides no

gamma radiation shielding. (CLICK) We believe it to be vital to allow the plants

to adapt and evolve under the Martian ambient radiation conditions so that

they become a uniquely Martian ecology.

15

The habitation zone is placed outside of the dome area. It is comprised of

standard modules delivered from Earth to Mars with standard ECLSS systems.

(CLICK) After connecting all of the modules together, they will be buried in two

meters of regolith to provide radiation shielding and insulation to he

inhabitants.

16

What is true about this entire setup is that things will not go as initially planned.

(CLICK) Thus, the design intent is to enable human adaptation and survival in

an alien environment with minimum to no support from Earth.

17

Deep Space Ecology has already commenced developing our Mars Epoch X2

design that allows for establishment of a human foothold on Mars and the

gradual build-up of a CES to the requirements developed under the Mars

Epoch X1 design. We are working on preliminary plans with ASTER Labs with

intent to build the Mars Epoch X2 prototype starting next year. The prototype

would not only test the final configuration, but would also test everything

required to build it and to grow the ecological system in an environment

simulating Mars conditions.

Individuals who wish to contribute can do so starting in October through our

crowd-funding partner, Orbitmuse. Individuals and companies wishing to

collaborate can contact our CEO, Lee Irons, at

leeirons@deepspaceecology.com.

Now, I have something cool to show you at the end, but first I need to make

some acknowledgments.

18

And now for some acknowledgements. I couldn’t have started down this path

without the help of Duke University and my advisers at Duke University. The

biological research I am conducting under this grant will be peer reviewed and

made publicly available and submitted for publication. It is also available

through my research Facebook page, www.facebook.com/dukemorganmars.

Thank you to JPL scientists William Abbey and Gregory Peters for advise and

collaboration and SYAR Industries for donating Mars regolith simulant.

19

I’d like to also acknowledge all of the wonderful people I have met through

social media, especially Tessa McEvoy, cartoonist at large, Dr. Robert Zubrin

whose book inspired me, as I’m sure most in this room, and who personally

encouraged me at the Humans to Mars Summit last spring to submit my

abstract to give this talk today, and Abby and Nichole at the Mars Generation,

where my upcoming research blog geared toward teenagers who wish to enter

the space sciences will be posted. I’d also like to thank everyone who helped

make up the critical difference in funding my university research. More funds

are needed, if anyone would like to donate.

20

On the business side, here is our incredible team at Deep Space Ecology that

is working on the CES designs. You can read the bios of our team members

at our website, www.deepspaceecology.com . We are still interviewing for

various positions. Interested individuals can submit their information to our

onboarding team.

In closing, I would like to show a video of our future state concept Mars Epoch

X3 design, which works on reducing the size of the footprint of the ecological

system by moving toward a vertical architecture.

21

22