Transcript BUILDING OFF-PLANET HUMAN ENVIRONMENTS: THE ROLE …

BUILDING OFF-PLANET HUMAN
ENVIRONMENTS: THE ROLE OF
MICROBIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING
BUILDING SELF FERTILIZING
FOOD ECOSYSTEMS
William W.M. Steiner
Dean, College of Agriculture,
Forestry and Natural
Resource Management
University of Hawai`i, Hilo
PISCES, November 2008
The nature of human ecology on planet earth has
depended on extant and existing factors driven to
a large extent by co-evolutionary principles.
This recognizes that human populations have not evolved alone but
via interaction with biotic and abiotic environmental factors.
Key is that growing foods require essential nutrients that not only
promote plant and animal growth but also are required for its
health.
These range from trace minerals and elemental molecules to bacteria
and fungi that promote growth. We can use evolutionary
principles and new genetic technology and knowledge to:
1. Establish solid and practical solutions to support human life off
planet.
2. Establish the beginnings of a capability to conduct terraforming.
3. Establish practical solutions that can benefit food production in
inhospitable environments on Earth.
NASA SBI Research & Technology
Transfer 2007 Program Solicitations
The new Vision for Space Exploration encompasses
needs for innovative technologies in the areas of Space
Human Factors and Food Systems. Operations in
confined, isolated, and foreign environments can lead to
impairments of human performance. This Topic seeks
methods for monitoring, modeling, and predicting
human performance in the spaceflight environment.
These methods and tools are needed for accurate and
valid human system integration into vehicle design and
operations. Additionally, significant advancements in
food technologies will be needed for long-duration
Lunar and Mars missions.
Extensive work has been done
growing nutrients via hydroponics
UA team plans a moon garden Jan. 2, 2007 12:00 AM
Arizona researchers have already figured out how to grow
fresh, leafy vegetables at the most remote spot on Earth.
Now, they want to pursue a new agricultural challenge: the
moon. The research team, which has been growing fruits
and vegetables, such as lettuce and cucumbers, at the
South Pole for the past 18 months, is building a chamber
capable of raising vegetables in space. The inflatable
chamber will easily fit into a rocket and run off of sunshine
and recycled water.
Agriculture Objectives in LHE
• Understand the capabilities of plants to grow and
thrive in the lunar gravitational field
• Understand the interactions of plants, humans and the
lunar environment
• Understand the life cycles of essential elements and
compounds in a mostly closed agricultural system
• Determine the extent to which lunar materials may
supply needed nutrients and agricultural containment
systems
Goals of the micro-engineering
portion of the PISCES proposal
1. To establish a hydroponic test bed for analysis of
inputs and outputs in order to understand the true
needs of specific types of plants on moon-like soils;
2. Determining which microorganisms lie at the base
of biological interactions of use to humans and their
survival in moonlike soils;
3. Understand and manipulate the metabolic
pathways that make them useful;
4. Determining the steps and tools needed to modify
those organisms to make them more effective while
ensuring their safe use.
Bacteria and fungi will be the
workhorses in closed systems
Geobacteraceae microbes decompose organic material.
•discovered in the muck of the Potomac River in 1987
•live where there's no oxygen and plenty of iron
•have ability to move electrons into metal
•use: process waste and generate electricity.
Cyanobacteria produce oxygen from inorganic material.
Rhizobacteria, Bradyrhizobium sp. mycorhizal fungi;
nitrogen fixation from air and soil components
Escherichia coli, has been engineered to produce hydrogen
First International Meeting on Microbial
Solubilization: Developments in Plant
and Soil Sciences. Plant and Soil, Vol.
287, 2007, 362 p.
Effect of Tilemsi phosphate rock solubilizing
microorganisms on phosphorous uptake and yield of field
grown wheat in Mali (B.A. Hamadoun and H. Antoun).
Differential effects of inoculations with Pseudomonas
jessinil 506 (a phosphate solubilizing Bacterium) and
Mesorhizobium ciceri C-2/2 strains on the growth and
seed yield of Chickpea Under greenhouse and field
conditions (A. Valverde et al).
Current genetic knowledge
Nitrogen fixing gene probes exist, they have been used to
map and isolate N genes for transfer and concentration
in target organisms; these tend to be 600 kb long.
Phosphate gene probes are being developed; the genes
remain to be mapped, isolated and transferred.
Calcium genes have been mapped and await isolation and
transfer.
A search for potassium mineral solubilizing genes must be
done but two phosphate-potassium solubilizing strains
isolated in China have been characterized
(strains KNP414 and KNP414)
Chemical soil extraction will determine
baseline amounts of minerals available
A sequential extraction of plant macro-mineral nutrients (P, K,
Ca,Mg, and S) in the regolith material can be performed using a
modified form of the fractionation procedures described by Ilstedt
et al. (2003) and Hedley et al. (1982, 1994).
The H2O-soluble and 0.2 M NH4Cl exchangeable fractions are
assumed to represent readily available nutrients while the 0.2 M
NaOH extracts nutrients surface-bound on metal oxides and
carbonates. The 1.0 M HCl dissolves Ca, Mg, and K within
carbonates; Ca, Mg, and P in apatite minerals; and possibly some
P and S occluded within metal oxide crystals. The nitric-perchloric
residual fraction represents the remainder of the occluded P and
S, and the more recalcitrant forms of Ca, Mg, and K trapped
within aluminosilicate minerals.
Terraforming (coined by SF writer Jack
Williamson in 1942) is now only an
engineering feat away
Friedman and colleagues in a series of papers in
the early 1990s identified potential bacteria of use
Chroococcidiopsis sp. A primitive type of cyanobacterium,
capable of surviving in a large variety of extreme
conditions while generating oxygen from insolubles.
Matteia sp. desiccation-resistant cyanobacterium that can
dissolve and bore through carbonate rock; has the ability
to fix nitrogen.
Synthetic Bacteria?
Scientists Create First Synthetic Bacterial
Genome -- Largest Chemically Defined
Structure Synthesized In The Lab
ScienceDaily (Jan. 24, 2008) — A team of 17 researchers
at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the
largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and
assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a
bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0.
Nothing to stop us from creating a single organism
Containing enhanced Ca, Mg, K, PO4, N2
Extraction genes.