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Bioregeneration at SAM: Experiment #4

EXPERIMENT #4
Seeds prepping – September 2th
Seeds sowing – September 3th
Seedlings Transplant – September 22nd
CO2 injection and Experiment Start – September 23rd
Matthias Ingress – October 13th
Plants harvest and kill – October 20th
WBA Ends – October 26th
TM cleaning and prep – October 27th to October 30th

This experiment coincides with the World’s Biggest Analog (WBA) and introduced a human in-the-loop.

By |2025-09-25T05:53:13+00:00September 2nd, 2025|Categories: Research & Development|0 Comments

Bioregeneration at SAM: a summary

Dwarf peas growing in the Test Module at SAM, at Biosphere 2.

Luna Powell and Atila Meszaros at SAM, following the first, complete configuration of an experiment in bioregeneration.

This spring brought us to the close of four years of design, development, and construction of a unique, world-class, hermetically sealed research facility for bioregeneration (air revitalization with plants) for long-duration human space exploration.

SAM is now actively hosting what will be the first of many years of experiments in which we grow a specific species of food cultivar to determine it’s growth rate and carbon sequestration against three Vapor Pressure Deficit values.

My graduate student Atila Meszaros and SAM Site Manager Luna Powell managed a perfectly executed test run of dwarf wheat, peas, and quinoa. The peas are a unique variety developed by Dr. Bruce Bugbee and his team at Utah State University. Smaller than standard, they produce a remarkably high seed yield–perfect for the Moon or Mars.

Furthermore, we are working with Dr. Lucie Poulet and her graduate student to determine key characteristics of the peas, including the density and dimensions of the leaves. All of this work is inspired by the legacy of NASA veteran Raymond Wheeler who was instrumental in motivating my dive into the world of bioregeneration in 2017 with my very first concept for SIMOC.

June through mid August saw completion of two full, six week runs of peas (2 weeks incubation at B2; 4 weeks in SAM) only to be met with the reality of one too many system failures and mistakes, forcing a total restart this past Thursday. That is the rigor of science–if the experiment is not done right, you do it again … and again. I am proud of Atila and Luna for not hesitating to set aside more than three months of hard, daily work in the name of solid science.

A dwarf variety of pea at SAM, Biosphere 2.

Our current experimental configuration is built around a nearly fully automated, computer controlled system that Atila, Luna, and Tanner Conrad, Research Technologist (under Dr. Murat Kacira) at UA CEAC assembled and programmed. It maintains a constant 800 ppm of CO2 such that by monitoring the amount of CO2 injected (from a cryogenic tank via gas manifold) we know the maturity of the peas and can plot, with a high degree of accuracy, the growth function and as such, ability for any food cultivar to revitalize cabin air.

The culmination of this series of experiments comes in October in conjunction with the World’s Biggest Analog where veteran SAM team member Matthias Beach will be sealed inside for two weeks. During the first week his CO2 will be sequestered by the peas (at least, that’s the hypothesis). On the morning of the 8th day he will harvest the peas, secure them in air-tight bags, and then complete the mission with no CO2 removal to demonstrate the amount of CO2 that was being sequestered by the plants.

Learn more about this series of experiments …

By |2025-09-25T18:47:37+00:00August 23rd, 2025|Categories: Research & Development|0 Comments

SAM team member Matthias Beach reflects on Flashline

Matthias Beach at the Mars Society's Flashline arctic research station, Devon Island, Canada

Crew: Matthias Beach, Jim Colletto, Andy Greco, Aubry Poilane, Ciaran Trevino, Terry Trevino, and Rhett Woods.

Devon Island is a place that has inspired hundreds to visit and study its unique environment, resembling something out of a sci-fi movie and, more importantly, Mars. On this island sits the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, perched on the rim of Haughton Crater, an ancient impact site from some 30+ million years ago.

I have recently returned from there, having been chosen as part of The Mars Society’s Advance 1 (‘A-Team’). Our mission: to get to the facility, secure the perimeter, open it up, do any maintenance and upgrades we could accomplish in seven days (which got condensed to five due to weather), prepare it for the following two teams (Crews 17 and 18), and exit stage-left upon Crew 17’s arrival. We were positioned to set them up for the best possible scenario: maximizing [their] research. This approach seemed to work really well, despite the hiccups in getting to the island from Iqaluit.

We were able to get a record amount of work done, including [installation of] a new ventilation system, hot-water heater, baseboard heaters, trash bagged and hauled out, and de-winterizing ATVs. As XO and electrician, I was tasked upon arrival to establish power to the facility, catapulting me into becoming very intimate with [the] generators and power cabling system very quickly! Both generators (‘Gen-A’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’) fired up, thankfully, eager to work again after their long slumber. The rush of excitement radiated through my veins, knowing full well that we were critically reliant on this working!

Three of us ventured down to collect water from a crystal-blue stream of ice melt about half a click from the Hab, filling our jugs before heading back. While the others worked on installing a new header tank and water heater, I got familiar with the place by locating tools, going through bins and cabinets, and mapping out cable runs for the three baseboard heaters I was tasked to install. After a couple of days and a few helping hands, all heaters were wired and mounted on the walls with thermostats to each heater. I was also privileged to assist fellow ham operator Jim Coletto in setting up the ham radio station, requiring me to climb the tower and string antenna cable from the top of the Hab down to another tower a few dozen feet away. Amazingly, he was able to reach over 320 contacts in at least a half dozen countries—truly astounding!

On the final day, I stood at the edge of the crater minutes before our ride came, marveling at its vastness and how sad I was to leave. I was just getting used to this fast-paced environment, my amazing crewmates and the 24 hour sun. None of us ventured into the crater on this trip, but next year I’ll be sure to make that happen. I believe that in order to thrive off-world we will need more of these types of remote stations to research and study ways of doing so, for the sake of expanding humanity into the cosmos.

Now back to SAM!

By |2025-08-25T23:13:08+00:00August 15th, 2025|Categories: Research Teams|0 Comments

A summer of adventure

This summer was one of adventure for the entire SAM crew.

Kai and Trent enjoyed a trip down the Grand Canyon mid-May with directors and volunteers for the National Space Society, the final voyage of this seasonal journey in memory of the incredible (and greatly missed) Anita Gale who departed planet Earth in May 2024.

Kai and Colleen attended the National Geographic Society’s Explorers Fest and then ventured on to Mongolia for six weeks, teaching English, exploring the foot of the country’s largest glacier, and kayaking wild rivers.

Kai Nevers and his partner Kate spent a month traveling around Greece and Italy … ending the trip with a 1 week hut-to-hut hike in the Dolomites.

Trent was wreck diving with the Explorers Club in the Great Salt Lakes.

Luna enjoyed time with family in rural Maine and sought refuge from the summer heat in Northern Arizona.

Griffin took his first trip overseas and presented two papers for SAM at ICES 2025, Prague.

Atila explored the beaches and jungle of his home country Peru.

Bindhu attended the Humans to the Moon and Mars summit in Washington D.C. followed by the Aerospace Medical Association conference in Atlanta, Georgia, related to the SAM MedBay project. She visited a colleague from the Analog Astronaut Conference in England, where she rode her first wave on a surf board, visited the Eden Project, and prehistoric Stonehenge.

Nathan explored lava tubes in Hawaii.

Shantano got his first, single author paper accepted to the CAIP conference, presented at the Sagan Summer Workshop for a hands-on project on occurence rate of exoplanets, and captured a thunderstorm and Saturn’s moon Titan on his phone.

And Matthias ventured to Devon Island with the Mars Society as XO for the Advance Team to prepare the Flashline station for Missions 17 and 18.

And somehow, despite the incredible travel, we got a lot done at SAM!

By |2025-09-26T15:29:18+00:00August 1st, 2025|Categories: Research & Development|0 Comments

Bioregeneration at SAM: mid first run

The following was written by University of Arizona graduate student Atila Meszaros, and lead researcher on Bioregeneration experiments at SAM. Any changes from the original body of text are in [brackets].

We are reaching the end of the second week of our first peas-experiment, still tweaking here and there, but learning pretty much every day. We are developing protocols and knowledge that will help us perfect growing cultivars at SAM for the next few years.

Since the last TODO list, before the experiment, we had 43 different activities to complete, each one with its own ramifications and tasks. But with everyone’s help we managed to pull through and we were able to finish the set up for the experiment. The next runs should be relatively painless from now on [in theory].

  • All monitoring and control for our main systems are wired, programmed, automated, and up and running. Something I will tackle soon, for both my thesis and SAM, is [a compilation of] the physical and computing processes—how I wired everything to each line of code, [including] video tutorials on how to operate Campbell and Logger net.
  • All data is saved in several places, the local computer at the IT room, [our shared SAM] Google Drive, and my personal PC. We are taking measurements every second, I will probably change it to every 10 seconds if the data gets too heavy to process. Just in 10 days we had 8 million data points. A little bit too much but it doesn’t hurt for now.
  • All racks are fully functional and with newly installed devices: extra lights, extra fans, new pumps, water pressure probes. We are reaching around 500 PPFD on our racks. Comparing it with Dr. Wheeler’s and Chinese Lunar Palace, their numbers vary between 400-600 for their highest output crops, and 700 PPFD for wheat. We are in a good range for our PPFD, although I would like to implement the dimmers in the future to have more flexibility. However, this also means that more lights cannot be added unless they are intercanopy lights that go in between the plants.
  • Temperature as we know is our biggest issue now. Hopefully with the recharge of the [failed mini-split unit], this gets solved for the foreseeable future. Our brand-new humidifier system is working perfectly, providing consistent values between the 40-45% relative humidity. We don’t see any reason why it would not provide the same consistency on higher humidities as we move the VPD. All the Whirlpool dehumidifiers have a range between 35%-80% currently setting is 45%. We haven’t seen any algae accumulation in the translucent tubes.
  • The crops seem to be growing strong and healthy. Revisiting the reflective wall experiment, where it took 20 days for us to see the first pea pods, 12 days since the transplanting, we are already seeing some of them in all the racks. One disadvantage of not being able to go inside, is not being able to record events like these every day. The addition of inner-rack cameras could be a possibility that we add in the future.
  • The CO2 injection gave us some problems the first days, as we were figuring out how to properly manage the regulator + CO2 tank. The CO2 tank gauge needs to be completely open, while every pressure change is in the regulator. I know it makes sense as I said it, but we didn’t want to have too much pressure at the beginning, so we half-opened the CO2 tank gauge. [Then] we find out that that CO2 gas output would shut off. Now, the system is working as intended, and we have consistent CO2 injections.
  • Now, on CO2. After some comparison between the SIMOC arrays, Campbell, and the handheld CO2 device. We have concluded that the SIMOC values at the TM are off by approximately 100 ppm. Talking with Ezio he mentioned that the calibration might be off. The numbers are ultimately constant, with the same offset value at different points. I am confident we can just process this post data recollection. I didn’t want to change the offset just yet, in case I was wrong, and it was an error from my devices.
  • The CO2 addition during the time that we go inside the TM is considerable. 20 minutes between Luna and I can increase more than 100 ppm. Every time we go inside, we have a specified agenda that we tackle as fast as possible. Tomorrow, we have a scheduled ingress, and I am thinking about running the blower with extra ports open so when we worked inside the CO2 ppm remains closer to 800, instead of taking longer to stabilize.
By |2025-09-25T18:46:48+00:00June 26th, 2025|Categories: Research & Development|0 Comments

Analog Astronaut Conference 2025 concludes

Analog Astronaut Conference 2025, Mars yard workshop with Dr. Christopher Hamilton, UA planetary geologist

The Analog Astronaut Conference has enjoyed its fourth year at Biosphere 2. This assembly of artists, writers, innovators, engineers, teachers, researchers, do-it-yourselfers, medical professionals, and yes, people who have made it to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere and into orbit came together once again to share food, stories, science, and the warmth of direct conversations.

At a time when it seems the world is pushing everyone apart, it is comforting to be in the presence of people from so many countries—Armenia, Germany, Poland, England, Columbia, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Kenya, the United States and more—to receive the music of accents of a half dozen languages during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The subject matter of the talks ranged from diversity and inclusion in future human space travel to the science of CO2 scrubbers, from home-grown greenhouse structures built from repurposed water tanks to emotional intelligence as a tool for human interaction in the confines of an isolated habitat.

The SAM staff hosted three workshops:

  • Basics of Wound Care and Suturing by David Wexler, MD and Dr Bindhu Oommen, MD
  • Bioregenerative Life Support with Hydroponics by Atila Meszaros and Luna Powell
  • A Mars Geology Tour by Dr. Christopher Hamilton and Tasha Coelho

The Wound Care workshop was hosted in the SAM Operations Center. The Hydroponics workshop was hosted in the SAM Test Module. And the Mars Geology workshop was hosted in the SAM Mars yard.

In addition, five SAM team members gave expert talks on a wide variety of subject matter:

  • Kai Staats opened the conference with review of the past year at SAM and a look to the future as the SAM team transitions from construction into research for bioregeneration, air revitalization, and advanced medical care for long-duration missions far from Earth.
  • Arizona State School of Earth and Space Exploration Planetary Geology undergraduate and SAM team member Tasha Coelho gave a talk about the current science investigations on Mars.
  • Purdue graduate and new Mechanical Engineer at SAM Griffin Hentzen gave a talk about the new Experimental Air Revitalization Laboratory (EARL) room and carbon dioxide removal system being built at SAM.
  • Bryan Versteeg, world-renowned space architect and member of the SAM team since 2019 gave a talk about his life’s work in helping envision the future of our species as we learn to live in free space and on the surface of the Moon and Mars.
  • Thomas Hoffman of the new Surgical Bay Research Group at SAM (with David Wexler and Bindhu Oommen) gave a talk about the history and current state of aerospace medicine for spaceflight.
By |2025-05-06T06:11:59+00:00May 5th, 2025|Categories: In the news|0 Comments

New SAM Team page

SAM Team montage

Since January 2021 the SAM team has grown from Kai Staats and Trent Tresch and a host of volunteers to an international cadre of staff members who contribute a wealth of knowledge, experience, skills, and motivation to bring to life an advanced research center for human space exploration.

Visit the all-new SAM Team page

By |2025-05-05T18:13:20+00:00April 25th, 2025|Categories: Research & Development|0 Comments
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