Five years ago today, SAM was born.
If we had known that half a decade later we’d still be building, well, we might not have had the courage to dive in. This is how entrepreneurs get things done — naive to the labor ahead (no matter how many projects have been engaged before) and full of energy, you take the first step and then start running.
The new IT room at SAM is nearly complete. Matthias and Nathan are applying the final coats of paint. We are keeping with the same space-themed colors in the Behr paint product line with “Lunar Surface” and “Mission Control” as applied in the Operations Center, up the hill.
What’s more, we painted the entire south wall of the IT room with chalkboard paint in order that we can hold team meetings in the Mars yard workshop and take notes that everyone can see, leave messages for each other, or simply express a little artistic fun, from time to time.
We fully admit to being far behind on blog entries.
Construction of new facilities continues. Research is going very well. But damn it, the Earth just rotates too fast, and there are not enough hours in the day to get it all done.
Stay tuned!
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 ?
The new SAM IT room will house a simple workbench, backup power supply, SIMOC Live server, and the Test Module Campbell Scientific controller in the form of a Mac Mini running Windows on Virtual Box. As this room will be air conditioned, it will also serve a break room and meeting space in the otherwise, often too hot or rather chilly open-air Mars yard workshop.
This is an all-team endeavor with Kai, Matthias, Nathan, Griffin, and Luna contributing as time allows.
SAM team member and master builder Nathan Schmit spent the better part of January chasing leaks, patching, and running pressure tests in the Crew Quarters (40 foot shipping container) at SAM.
The leaks took on several forms, from punctured or torn aluminum tape to loose rivets in the original shipping container construction. Many of the leaks were audible, when in fact there were no trace sounds during prior pressurized tests and crewed missions. It was concluded that the daily expansion and contraction of the 40 foot container, which has an aluminum exterior and stainless interior, that new leaks had developed.
Using techniques applied in prior leak detection sessions, Nathan discovered a major leak behind the mini-split air conditioning system that invoked the need to pull the system from the wall, patch, caulk, and reattach. In so doing, we also moved the line-set from going straight out behind the head unit to first moving down along the interior wall, then out, through the wall. This gives us visibility and access to the interface, should it leak again.
Along the interface between the floor and rear wall Nathan poured over two gallons of clear epoxy resin to fill a series of leaks that were otherwise impossible to reach and patch, despite several attempts.
The subsequent pressure tests found leak rate increasing, not decreasing, which lead us to discover that once again, the patches on the lung had dry rotted.
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!
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.
And that is just the beginning of what will prove to be the most exciting phase of developments at SAM in 2025!
The final hydroponic racks are complete!
After Sean and Luna built out prototype #4 earlier in the summer and decided that was the system that suited SAM best, Luna and Matthias got to work building three more copies in August. They were joined by Dr. Linda Leigh who was added to the SAM team in order to further her knowledge on hydroponic systems and be more involved at SAM. With their combined strengths they got to work assembling the racks.
The first step was to build the skeleton of the rack. Using 80/20 they built up the sides, leveled the bottom and added the shelves. Once everything was level and secure they moved on to adding the plant trays, two per shelf. This involved meticulous and precise cutting of the trays, then cleaning up and gluing caps on the ends. Once they were satisfied with the end result of the trays, it was all about PVC. They built out the pump, intake manifold, return manifold and water drops for each shelf. This took the majority of the time, measuring, cutting, gluing, testing and putting together.
There were a lot of ideas how everything should get done and what the final product should look like. With a couple shipping delays the team was finally able to test the racks. To their amazement there were no significant issues with the system—no large leaks or anything that could not be fixed with a few turns of a union. With just 3 days left to spare, everything was ready for the tomato experiment to go in on September 2nd! —by Luna Powell, Site Manager and Greenspace Researcher at SAM
The geologically accurate Mars yard at SAM is constructed of expanded polystyrene (EPS), or Styrofoam, two 40 foot truck loads, to be precise, with a thin layer of concrete to protect and further define the Mars-like features.
Following construction of the Mars yard at SAM, we were left with a massive amount of remnants and scraps. While Hollywood routinely sends both the scrap and full, used movie sets to the landfill, we refused to do the same. Instead, we did our research and learned that while EPS is not readily recycled as are other plastic products, it can be made into a new product called “styrocrete“—a load bearing construction material made from ground-up EPS and Portland cement (with or without sand and aggregate) for a lighter building material with improved insulation qualities.
SAM team member Luna found Earth Friendly Building Materials just up the road from Biosphere 2 in Florence, Arizona. They arrived a few days later and were able to remove every bit of foam in a single, large truck trailer.