Human Life Support

CHAPTER 3

Gravity
If there is no gravity on Earth, we all would be floating in the Earth’s atmosphere. The
buildings would become unstable. That is why Gravity is so essential for a human to live. You
might get a doubt, as there is no gravity in space, right? Yes, there is no gravity in space, but
we have a way to create artificial gravity in space by rotating the torus in which the humans
reside in the space settlement at a certain speed.
In comparison to Earth where gravity acts towards the centre. Here the entire
settlement rotates to create centrifugal force which acts outwards and away from the centre of
the axis to provide artificial gravity. In other words, we can create artificial gravity by the
centrifugal effect caused by the centripetal force obtained by rotating the floor of the rotating
structure (like a torus) pushing up on the person residing in our space settlement.
The formulae to create the artificial gravity in our space settlement are: -
 Centripetal acceleration = ω2Xr
 Centrifugal force = mω2r
 Artificial gravity = ω2r

Food
Food is a key element for human beings to survive anywhere. Without proper food,
we cannot have proper nutrients and we may die. We cannot transport the food from Earth to
our space settlement is difficult as our space settlement is extremely far away from Earth.
Time and money would be wasted unnecessarily. We have the only option to create food
artificially in space. There are many ways to produce food artificially in space -
i. Hydroponics
ii. Aeroponics
iii. Vertical Farming etc...
In our space settlement, we chose the Aeroponics method to create food artificially.
We would suspend the roots of growing plants in an air or moist environment which is
artificially created and receives the nutrients and water in the form of mist. The plants would
grow faster than any other method which would result in more food production. This method
uses less water as the nutrients and water are obtained by mist. This technique gives food
with higher quality which is healthy to humans. We can also have more space to grow as it
would occupy less storage.

Water
Water is the most important than food for humans as our bodies contain 70% of water.
We could live for at least a week, but we cannot live without water for even a single day. We
have so many methods to make drinking water in space as we cannot simply transport water
from Earth to our space settlement. Some of the methods for producing clean, drinking water
for the residents living in our space settlement are: -
i. Extracting from moons
ii. Sabatier reaction
iii. Bosch reaction
From the following methods for producing water for our space settlement, we chose the
Sabatier reaction which includes Hydrogen reacting with Carbon Dioxide to give Methane
and water.
Sabatier’s Reaction: - CO2 + 4H2 + 2H2O
We can also extract the water from Europa as Europa has an icy crust. We can also
produce drinking water from the sweat/urine of people’s bodies. We would disinfect and
filter and clean the water which is way cleaner than the normal drinking water.

Oxygen/Atmosphere
We need oxygen to survive as we breathe oxygen as it helps to process the
metabolism, and helps our body in growth and repair. Without breathing, there would be no
processes happening in our body like growth and repair of our body would stop and we
would die. We replicated almost the same atmosphere as the Earth’s. As we breathe in
oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, the plants on the other hand, do the same thing quite
opposite as we did by taking in Carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen that helps us to
breathe.
In our space settlement, we create the oxygen artificially by a method called “Water
Electrolysis.” There is a machine called as the “Water Electrolyser” which would split the
water (H2O) into Oxygen (O) and Hydrogen (H). During this process, the electric energy is
converted into chemical energy which can be used as an oxygen supply to our space
settlement. The oxygen is also filtered before it reaches the residents of our space colony.
In this way, we create oxygen artificially for the people who are residing in our space
settlement.

Temperature
The temperature is a crucial element for living beings such as plants. Some plants are adapted
to grow in some conditions while some plants cannot grow in those conditions. We will
provide the best suitable temperature for the plants and people of our space settlement. We
installed thermal control systems to maintain the temperature of our space settlement. The
thermal control systems include: -

i. Air conditioners to cool the space settlement

ii. Radiators to release the heat from our space settlement into space
iii. Reflective panning to reflect the excessive heat and radiations which keeps the
settlement cool.
 iv. Heat absorbers to absorb heat
The temperature varies from season to season it will be hot and humid during summer,
humid during monsoon, cold during winter etc. We can also change the temperature of
the home according to the person’s desire.

Day & Night and Seasons

 Day & Nights
The cycle of day and night is very important for plants and animals as they are habituated to
rest at night and wake up morning and vice versa. Without a proper day and night cycle, we
would be very confused and disturbed as it affects our sleep timings.
We decided to replicate the day and night cycle with the smart windows/ glass on the tori
of our space settlement. The smart window will allow the light to pass through it in the
daytime, and the glass will reduce the light passing through it at night time dimming the
interior of the space settlement. In this way, we can create artificial day and night cycle. The
day and night cycle is very important to humans as it reminds the person that the day has
ended and they should go to sleep.

 Seasons
We can create artificial seasons in our space settlement by making the surroundings ambient
like creating artificial rain, snow, humidity, mist which gives the feeling of seasons same like
on the Earth. We would create the abiotic atmosphere on the Earth by: -
i. Fluorescent tubes for sunlight
ii. Transparent LED for the sky
iii. The weather would be ambient by simulating temperature with respect to the weather,
humidity, rainfall, snow and mist.