Hello Gang,
Today is a historic day in both the annuals of undersea and space colonization. In a self contained biosphere beneath the waters of a lake near Albury on the NSW-Victoria border. Australian marine biologist Lloyd Godson, 29, today began his unusual holiday in a steel box.
He will have to generating his own oxygen and grow some of his own food from algae using a bioreactor.
Funded by the Australian Geographical Society, the project is a lesson in self-sufficiency and sustainability and a long-held, if slightly unusual, dream for the scientist.
"It's something I've always been fascinated with ... in university I got more and more interested in sub-sea habitats and submersibles," Mr. Godson said before jumping into his underwater lair, named the BioSUB.
Follow his progress at the following website:
http://www.biosub.com.au/
and read today's news item at
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21504333-2,00.html
Alex Michael Bonnici
On Apr 04, 2007, at 17:13 UTC, Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:
> and space colonization. In a self contained biosphere beneath the
> waters of a lake near Albury on the NSW-Victoria border. Australian
> marine biologist Lloyd Godson, 29, today began his unusual holiday in
> a steel box.
>
> Measuring just nine cubic metres, the box is where Mr. Godson will
> eat, sleep and surf the net for the next fortnight, while being
> tested for the psychological and physical pressures of being
> underwater.
Doesn't sound that historic to me. NOAA's Aquarius lab has been
deployed since 1992, is substantially more elaborate than this, and
includes longer stays (e.g. 2006 Mission 2 from April 3-20).
> He will have to generating his own oxygen and grow some of his own
> food from algae using a bioreactor.
Maybe this is the new part. I can't find any information on how
Aquarius produces oxygen.
Best,
- Joe
Joe Strout -- joe@...
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Michael Bonnici"
wrote:
>
> Hello Gang,
> Today is a historic day in both the annuals of undersea
and space colonization. In a self contained biosphere beneath the
waters of a lake near Albury on the NSW-Victoria border. Australian
marine biologist Lloyd Godson, 29, today began his unusual holiday in
a steel box....
>
> Follow his progress at the following website:
>
> http://www.biosub.com.au/
>
> and read today's news item at
>
> http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21504333-2,00.html
>
> Alex Michael Bonnici
>
I read Joe Strout's assessment of the biosub project's significance
and I firmly disagree for several reasons:
1) This project seems to be largely "home grown" (as opposed to the
multi-million dollar government financed space research projects). It
provides us with yet another indicator that research into closed
ecosystems is moving into the public consciousness and out of the
realm of government sponsored space exploration or flaky billionaire
hobbies (such as the Biosphere II project in Arizona, USA). Although
billions will be required to establish our permanent presence in
space, public interest and support is essential to the process of
motivating those who control billions of dollars (in both the public
and private sectors).
2) The participants come to the biosub project with a variety of
motivations - ranging from demonstrating the usefulness of a product
they manufacture (solar panels, for instance) to practical learning
experience (such as the students at Cascade High School who want to
develop a cost effective means to reduce nitrate and phosphate
pollution of Cascade Lake) to shear adventurism (such as the intrepid
Mr. Godson). This is a good thing. It illustrates that research
applicable to space travel and space settlement can have practical
applications in our everyday life right here on earth, and that
"ordinary" people can still have a spirit of adventure without being
considered crazy.
3) Finally, this is the first post I've seen in a while that is
truly pertinent to the subject of space settlement. Although I find
the discussion of Artificial Intelligence interesting, it's a subject
that just isn't needed to get us into space permanently. On the other
hand, the low-tech plastic tubing of Cascade High School's biocoil
might be a standard feature of even advanced space settlements of the
future. If your post does nothing else but get us off the subject of
Artificial Intelligence and back to the practical question of how
we're going to establish a permanent presence in space then I will
enthusiastically applaud Mr. Godson's "trip" as a historic day for
space colonization.
On Apr 05, 2007, at 07:56 UTC, Chris Smyth wrote:
> Artificial Intelligence and back to the practical question of how
> we're going to establish a permanent presence in space then I will
> enthusiastically applaud Mr. Godson's "trip" as a historic day for
> space colonization.
I certainly agree with that!
Best,
- Joe
Joe Strout -- joe@...
Hello Chris,
Thank you very much for your interest. What attracted me to Lloyd Godson's BioSub project was indeed the fact that it was an individual initiative in the purist sense of the term. And, also its the most recent private attempt in recent years I know of (please correct me if I'm wrong in this) to test a self contain biosphere technology to life support systems applicable both for undersea habitats and space exploration.
Thanks Again,
Alex
From: Chris Smyth
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 9:56 AM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: BioSub - A Self contained Biosphere Beneath The Sea
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Michael Bonnici"
wrote:
>
> Hello Gang,
> Today is a historic day in both the annuals of undersea
and space colonization. In a self contained biosphere beneath the
waters of a lake near Albury on the NSW-Victoria border. Australian
marine biologist Lloyd Godson, 29, today began his unusual holiday in
a steel box....
>
> Follow his progress at the following website:
>
> http://www.biosub.com.au/
>
> and read today's news item at
>
> http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21504333-2,00.html
>
> Alex Michael Bonnici
>
Dear Alex,
I read Joe Strout's assessment of the biosub project's significance
and I firmly disagree for several reasons:
1) This project seems to be largely "home grown" (as opposed to the
multi-million dollar government financed space research projects). It
provides us with yet another indicator that research into closed
ecosystems is moving into the public consciousness and out of the
realm of government sponsored space exploration or flaky billionaire
hobbies (such as the Biosphere II project in Arizona, USA). Although
billions will be required to establish our permanent presence in
space, public interest and support is essential to the process of
motivating those who control billions of dollars (in both the public
and private sectors).
2) The participants come to the biosub project with a variety of
motivations - ranging from demonstrating the usefulness of a product
they manufacture (solar panels, for instance) to practical learning
experience (such as the students at Cascade High School who want to
develop a cost effective means to reduce nitrate and phosphate
pollution of Cascade Lake) to shear adventurism (such as the intrepid
Mr. Godson). This is a good thing. It illustrates that research
applicable to space travel and space settlement can have practical
applications in our everyday life right here on earth, and that
"ordinary" people can still have a spirit of adventure without being
considered crazy.
3) Finally, this is the first post I've seen in a while that is
truly pertinent to the subject of space settlement. Although I find
the discussion of Artificial Intelligence interesting, it's a subject
that just isn't needed to get us into space permanently. On the other
hand, the low-tech plastic tubing of Cascade High School's biocoil
might be a standard feature of even advanced space settlements of the
future. If your post does nothing else but get us off the subject of
Artificial Intelligence and back to the practical question of how
we're going to establish a permanent presence in space then I will
enthusiastically applaud Mr. Godson's "trip" as a historic day for
space colonization.
Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:
I don't think that it was a bad thing that we were talking about AI,
but I was glad to read about this. One problem I always had with
Biosphere II as a model of space colonization was this whole "we've
got an ocean; we've got a rain forest; we've got a prairie; we've got
a desert..." How about "we've got what it takes to keep the
atmosphere usable and to feed us and to keep from drowning in our own
waste."
what can be done, at the smaller scale and maybe do a rain forest when
you've got not dying figured out.
My boss was just out at John Allen's (the guy who
financed biosphere II) place on Saturday, and
apparently they have been very quietly doing exactly
that. The new facility is windowless and
temperature-controlled, all lighting is electric and
carefully metered, and they are doing it on a much
smaller scale with the goal of figuring out the "not
dying" part rather than "let's cram in every ecosystem
we can think of".
--- Xenophile wrote:
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Ed Minchau wrote:
>
> My boss was just out at John Allen's (the guy who
> financed biosphere II) place on Saturday, and
> apparently they have been very quietly doing exactly
> that. The new facility is windowless and
> temperature-controlled, all lighting is electric and
> carefully metered, and they are doing it on a much
> smaller scale with the goal of figuring out the "not
> dying" part rather than "let's cram in every ecosystem
> we can think of".
>
> Ed
>
I apologize for my "flaky billionaire" remark if John Allen has
turned his attention to a more realistic starting point for a
sustainable enclosed environment prototype. This area of research and
development is one of the first challenges in the critical path to
establishing a long term presence in space.
Chris