BioProduction on Mars

Establishing a long-term human presence on Mars will require the ability to produce materials from on-site resources. The alternative, sending materials from Earth, is unrealistic given the high launch costs and risks associated with long-distance resupplies. In general, there are no substantial sources of organic carbon or fixed nitrogen on Mars. This is an impediment to the application of bioprocesses as several industrially-relevant organisms are not capable of fixing carbon dioxide and/or nitrogen. As such, cyanobacteria have been proposed as primary producers to feed these bioprocesses since they can grow solely on Martian resources. Utilizing this cyanobacterial biomass as a feedstock requires a pre-processing step as the raw material is not easily metabolized. Microbial electrochemical systems (MES) may be the solution: an anodic compartment could serve as a platform to process cyanobacterial biomass into a suitable growth substrate for microorganisms and plants. The goal of this project is to assist in the development of the cyanobacterial-processing anode.