Microbial biomanufacturing for space-exploration—what to take and when to make

Abstract

As renewed interest in human space-exploration intensifies, a coherent and modernized strategy for mission design and planning has become increasingly crucial. Biotechnology has emerged as a promising approach to increase resilience, flexibility, and efficiency of missions, by virtue of its ability to effectively utilize in situ resources and reclaim resources from waste streams. Here we outline four primary mission-classes on Moon and Mars that drive a staged and accretive biomanufacturing strategy. Each class requires a unique approach to integrate biomanufacturing into the existing mission-architecture and so faces unique challenges in technology development. These challenges stem directly from the resources available in a given mission-class—the degree to which feedstocks are derived from cargo and in situ resources—and the degree to which loop-closure is necessary. As mission duration and distance from Earth increase, the benefits of specialized, sustainable biomanufacturing processes also increase. Consequentially, we define specific design-scenarios and quantify the usefulness of in-space biomanufacturing, to guide techno-economics of space-missions. Especially materials emerged as a potentially pivotal target for biomanufacturing with large impact on up-mass cost. Subsequently, we outline the processes needed for development, testing, and deployment of requisite technologies. As space-related technology development often does, these advancements are likely to have profound implications for the creation of a resilient circular bioeconomy on Earth.

Building Synthetic Cells─From the Technology Infrastructure to Cellular Entities

“…As life is self-replicating and synthetic biology can transfer the ability to convert available resources into a more tractable form (say, a single cell that could produce wood or rubber), biotechnology has the potential to be the key to human survival off-planet. , Cells, especially microbes, are exquisitely good at nanotechnology and comparatively low-maintenance . The attainable savings in up-mass can be huge . Creating synthetic cells that are better suited to off-planet environments than naturally evolved life could be the key to life-support and in situ resource utilization for manufacturing of items with regular demand on long-duration space missions, such as food, drugs, and materials. , …”

Domains of life sciences in spacefaring: what, where, and how to get involved

“…SBE combines synthetic biology and bioprocess engineering under extreme conditions to enable and sustain a biological presence in space 2 . SBE technologies 70 generalize into categories for in situ resource utilization (ISRU) 71 , 72 , loop closure (LC) 73 , in situ manufacturing (ISM) 74 , and food and pharmaceutical synthesis (FPS) 75 – 78 . This includes the development of ultra-efficient and regenerative resource capture and recycling systems, such as carbon and nitrogen capture, and water reclamation 79 .…”

“…SBE also includes efforts to define novel routes to “self-repairing”, “growable”, and “self-driving” bioprocessing infrastructure. This includes programmable, responsive, and scalable biomanufacturing processes for the production of materials, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, as well as functional foods with configurable nutrient profiles 74 . Moreover, SBE focuses on the creation of resilient and adaptive platform organisms that can thrive in low-resource, high-stress environments.…”

“…At the leading edge is the engineering of other pieces of living infrastructure, such as self-healing materials 82 . These organisms will play an essential role in enabling the production of life-critical, efficient, and sustainable functions for deep space and Earth while maintaining high agency and low risk 74 . However, issues of safety and reliability in the space environment, along with containment and threat of environmental contamination, remain open challenges.…”

Isolation and Characterization of aHalomonasSpecies for Non-Axenic Growth-Associated Production of Bio-Polyesters from Sustainable Feedstocks

“…Bio-producible materials that can be obtained from renewable and waste-derived feedstocks are not only of interest to sustainable manufacturing on Earth but are also sought after for in situ manufacturing in space [14, 15]. For example, it has recently been estimated that about half the payload of a human deep-space exploration, which mainly consists of items related to environmental control and life-support systems, consists of plastics [16]. Enabling their production “on the go” could significantly reduce the cargo requirements of such endeavors.…”