Postcards from Mars

APUS ARG-1S arrives to SAM

Kristen Miller and Terry Trevino of the American Public University have brought to SAM a ten days mission, with two crews of four sealed inside of SAM for five days each. This unique project will feature a mid-mission crew shift-change via the SAM Airlock, such that one half of the crew will join the dedicated CapCom team at the SAM Operations Center. Both crews will perform a wide variety of research projects including algae studies, EVA research, communications, crew nutrition, microbial spread, and water electrolysis. The mission will be facilitated by an on-site Mission Support team, the first to work from the SAM Operations Center and Mission Control.

APUS ARG-1S Kristen Miller and Terry Trevino installing experiments at SAM APUS ARG-1S Kristen Miller and Terry Trevino installing experiments at SAM

APUS ARG-1S Kristen Miller and Terry Trevino installing experiments at SAM APUS ARG-1S Kristen Miller and Terry Trevino installing experiments at SAM

Narrative coming soon …

By |2025-02-18T20:50:00+00:00February 6th, 2025|Categories: Research Teams|0 Comments

Three weeks into 2025

Atila Meszaros
We welcome the return of Atila Meszaros from his home country of Peru. Atila is graduate student at the University of Arizona, working principally under SAM Director of Research Kai Staats. Atila completed his first year and a half of classes from the fall of 2022 through the close of 2023, and is now set to engage in 18 months of research at SAM. His research is at the core of why SAM was designed and built—to establish baselines for human and plant studies in bioregeneration. Atila and Luna will be the principal directors of Phase II of our three phase study, with plant CO2 sequestration research starting in March and continuing through 2025.

SAM Surgical Bay Workshop
Bindhu and Kai lead the Surgical Bay workshop at B2 January 17-19. They welcomed five practicing surgeons to Biosphere 2 Friday afternoon, spent all of Saturday at SAM and in the B2 board room designing a medical bay capable of a dynamic array of surgical procedures, all conducted far, far from home. It was a unique event, with all home cooked food and catered meal (one of the attendees claimed Kai’s omelette was the best he had ever consumed!). There was no use of computers or slide presentations with a half day of hands-on design, discussion, and even an engineering challenge with wooden sticks, string, superglue and a few substantial rocks. It was casual, creative, stimulating, and engaging. Bindhu is now following up with the attendees, merging feedback to expand the draft paper written by Kai and Bindhu, while other team members explore state of the art in NAVY submarines and remote terrestrial habitats.

A study of the microbiome
Carter Hollings, University of Arizona undergrad in Biology has completed his first survey of the microbiome at SAM, having outlined several small squares (approximately 20cm x 20cm each) where he sterilized the surface and then a week later compared the swabs and samples. With the incoming APUS crew, our forth at SAM, Carter will again survey this built environment before and immediately following the 10 days mission. We are excited to learn from his first run as we are working in and around SAM, and then following the sealed mission.

New construction!
Daniel and his comedic crew of concrete workers returned to SAM for the third time to pour three slabs (now two weeks ago): new CO2 scrubber room, new IT room, and a new floor in SAM AIR. This was a major accomplishment, giving us foundation (pun intended) for a whole new set of high quality facilities at SAM.

Home Depot away from Home
Kai now officially lives at Home Depot with a record-setting 11.5 hr shopping spree on Thursday, January 23, with three visits to the north Oro Valley store. Kai retrieved the gravity-offset rig from the UA welding shop, which was this evening reassembled, adjusted, and is now fully operational. It is lighter, more stiff, quicker to respond, and far smoother in operation than the original wood and steel prototype.

Hydroponics
Luna worked with Jason, expert in everything plant-based at Biosphere 2, to transplant seedlings for the next hydroponics run in the TM during the APUS mission, February 9-18. While not a science run, this collection of greens (some from B2, some from Home Depot) will provide our visiting crew with a backdrop of edible plants to liven up their stay in SAM.

New IT room
Kai, Matthias, Griffin, and Luna framed in the two side walls and roof structure for the new IT room, located inside the historic 6400 sq-ft greenhouse structure that was originally part of the Biosphere 2 visitor experience. This room-inside-a-room will give us a clean, air conditioned space for the WiFi router, SIMOC Live, and SAM crew email server (with light-travel time delay), as well as data collection for the TM and any other systems we prefer to have at the bottom end of the radio link to Ops. In addition, Matthias and Griffin ran three new circuits to the location of the new IT room: air conditioning, critical computers, and accessories. Eager to install the buckets for lights, sockets, and switches.

A return to the lung
The SAM Lung is the prototype variable volume pressure regulation module that maintained pressure in the Test Module for more than three years of solo experiments while the Biospherians designed and built the Biosphere 2. This was the first structure that Kai and Trent set to renovate in 2021, and remains the last structure to be completed. It’s mostly below ground, difficult to enter, and hard to work on. After several more weeks effort, we are nearly done with one more coat of primer and then two coats enamel paint. Just last week Matthias and Bindhu pressure washed top of the metal pan and it looks much, much better! Ready to be primed .. but then it snowed and it’s too cold.

He’s back!
Master fabricator Nathan returned to SAM three weeks ago and as expected dove directly into a major effort to seal SAM. The number of leaks he has discovered in the 40′ is beyond what we expected, from tiny pin holes to major tears. In our last pressure test it was determined that the A/C unit continued to leak even after a massive amount of silicon was injected. So, we unmounted the head unit and rerouted the coolant and power lines through new hole in the side of the shipping container, allowing us direct access to the port such that we can test for and repair leaks more easily. The bathroom window has been completely removed and replaced with an all new polycarbonate construction. Nathan and Kai applied employed a version of the original Biospherian technique to seal the TM windows, resulting in what we believe will be a perfectly airtight seal. The TM/40 and 40/airlock bridges are fully rebuilt, and a dozen more leaks too. Fingers crossed for the next pressure test!

Patents in motion
While Cameron Smith, Kai Nevers, Trent Tresch, and Ivy Wahome designed and built a prototype tent for backpacking on Mars, Kai Staats outlined a half dozen new ideas for patents around an inflatable habitat for terrestrial exploration, on foot. Given Kai’s sketches and rough draft, Trent is now working to complete the submission of the IP to UA Tech Launch Arizona, with hope that one or more patents will come to fruition.

Trent Goes to NASA!
Our very own Trent Tresch was accepted by NASA to be a part of an 11 day stay in a reduced pressure analog at NASA Johnson Space Center. He will be living and working in a 9 psi (similar to 10,000 feet elevation) environment with increased O2 while conducting various activities and exercises to test for VO2 Max and cognitive abilities.

Well, that’s all we have for the first three weeks of January 🙂

By |2025-02-06T06:36:37+00:00January 24th, 2025|Categories: Construction|0 Comments

Happy Anniversary to SAM!

The first day at SAM, January 20, 2021

Four years ago today Kai and Trent moved to the Biosphere 2 to undertake what they thought would be a six month renovation of the 1987 Test Module. Four years later, construction of the ever expanding facility continues with completion of the stunning Mars yard in April 2024, completion of a third generation hydroponics facility in September 2024, and now a new IT room at the SAM workshop, and the foundation poured for a new CO2 scrubber research facility as of Thursday, January 16, 2025.

It just keeps getting better!

By |2025-01-23T05:58:41+00:00January 20th, 2025|Categories: Construction|0 Comments

Welcome Griffin Hentzen!

This year will see a shift in the SAM team. While in a corporate environment it is expected that the team and total productivity always grow, in an academic environment teams fluctuate—semester to semester, research project to research project, year to year.

At the start of the SAM project in January 2021 all team members were volunteers, including Kai and Trent. With a dozen volunteers that spring, the team then shrunk to just a few in the fall, growing steadily again through 2023. Volunteers provided what time they had. Some became paid staff. Students graduated and moved to jobs in their field.

The fall of 2024 was a transition with the realization that the SAM project had matured, now requiring more than pairs of willing hands and a willingness to learn new skills—SAM needs focused skill-sets and experience to bring specific ideas to form. This resulted in our first ever job posting and a new hire.

Griffin Hentzen comes to us from Purdue where he recently graduate with a BSc in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University. He has interned at Sierra Space for two semesters, with a focus in carbon dioxide scrubber systems. He will be focusing this year on the design and fabrication our new CO2 scrubber at SAM, working closely with Dr. James Knox (also a part of the SAM team) and Director of Research lead Kai Staats, while lending a hand in myriad tasks as presented.

Welcome Griffin!

By |2025-01-30T06:07:28+00:00January 15th, 2025|Categories: Research & Development|0 Comments

With the close of 2024

The SAM Team has this fall sustained a rigorous forward progress. Unlike the prior three years of design, development, and fabrication, this semester has seen us developing programs and collaborations as much as physical structures. This growth is welcomed, but it has also broken the tradition of weekly updates in the form of photo essays to this blog site.

As such, until those stories can be built, backdated, and posted, here is a quick summary.

  • We have returned to the process of leak detection and patching in order to extend the time SAM can remain pressurized without adding air, for those missions that desire to operate in Mode 3.
  • Dr. Sean Gellenbeck, Luna Powell and Matthias Beach, have moved into the construction of an automated hydroponics nutrient management and delivery and light control for the SAM hydroponics system. The Campbell Scientific system is now installed, with programming slated for late January into February. Project leadership transitions to graduate student Atila Meszaros with the start of this spring 2025 semester.
  • A new CO2 scrubber research facility is being constructed between the Crew Quarters and the Air Intake Room (SAM AIR) to close the loop. To be built on a licensed NASA patent with NASA veteran Dr. James Knox as the model lead (since February 2024) for our team.
  • The SIMOC Live team continues to evolve and improve this portable, ad hoc network air quality monitoring and model validation system built on open source software and the combination of Raspberry Pi computers and Adafruit sensor boards.
  • The Mars yard gravity offset rig is being rebuilt from welded aluminum with a transition from static climbing rope to braided steel cable for the suspended counter weight system for a tighter, more static and responsive system with less inertial lab.
  • During the months of November and December Dr. Cameron Smith and Kai Nevers with assistance from Trent Tresch, Ivy Wahome, and Matthias Beach designed, fabricated, and tested an emergency inflatable shelter for Mars. This functional prototype is now housed at SAM with a handful of potential patents already in motion. Photographs and blog entries will be posted as soon as the IP is more fully defined. Stay tuned!
  • Dr. Bindhu Oommen and Kai Staats, MSc are leading the design, development, and fabrication of an full-featured surgical bay for installation at SAM. This future-looking project begins with a systematic, mathematical analysis of the urgency of a medical emergency, the capabilities of the surgical bay, and the distance from a more advanced facility if transport is required for the ultimate procedure. This project is now several months in motion, with a first-ever workshop held at Biosphere 2 and SAM January 17-19 with eight world-class surgeons joining in person to take this concept to the next level.
  • Completing the remodel of Ops which was set back by a semi-major water flood this summer. Principal focus is on a fully functional kitchen, updates to the Mission Control Center, and hanging several prints to add a little color to the rooms.
  • Phase I of a multi-year, multi-year research project, the very project for which SAM was built, begins as soon as the IRB approval is complete. This will see ten of the SAM team members each staying inside of SAM for 58 hours in order to monitor CO2 level rise in the sealed facility with no CO2 scrubber and no plants. Body mass, food intake, and activities will be recorded.

And that is just the beginning of what will prove to be the most exciting phase of developments at SAM in 2025!

By |2025-01-15T07:22:30+00:00January 6th, 2025|Categories: Construction, Research & Development|0 Comments

Artists on the Moon

We are aesthetic animals, and art is integrated to what we are and who we are. So, if that is the case and if we do research to understand what we are, then why don’t we integrate art into R1 science research in universities? The University of Arizona, College of Fine Arts Associate Research Dean, Ellen McMahon and her collaborators sent four artists to an analogue space mission in Biospehere2 in their Space Analog for the Moon and Mars . In this story, we will see what happens when artists enter a space habitat, that was designed for scientists.

Producer: Özlem Ayşe Özgür
Videographer: Danny Sax, Özlem Ayşe Özgür
Additional Videography: Arlene Islas
Editor: Robert Lindberg

Read the original article …

By |2024-12-17T18:06:42+00:00November 12th, 2024|Categories: In the news|0 Comments

An update from Milan, Italy

Last week SAM team members Kai Staats, Bindhu Oommen, Matthias Beach, Ezio Melotti, and Trent Tresch attended the International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2024) in Milan, Italy. Kai presented a paper titled “A Reduced Gravity Simulator at the Space Analog for the Moon & Mars (SAM) Terrestrial Habitat Analog at Biosphere 2” and Bindhu presented a paper titled “The Space Analog for the Moon and Mars (SAM): a hermetically-sealed and pressurized terrestrial analog station and research facility, from inception to crewed analog missions and beyond.”

This week the team ventured overland from Milan to Innsbruck, Austria to meet with Dr. Gernot Grömer, president of the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF) wherein they enjoyed a hands-on introduction to their reduced gravity simulator and renowned analog space suit program. The teams explored potential, near-future collaborations and alignment of resources as they each work to support the AAC World’s Biggest Analog.

Once team members are returned to the US and settled in, several overdue updates to this website will be conducted.

By |2024-10-24T15:54:13+00:00October 24th, 2024|Categories: Publications, Research & Development|0 Comments
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