BUILDING OFF-PLANET HUMAN ENVIRONMENTS: THE ROLE OF

MICROBIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING

BUILDING SELF FERTILIZING FOOD ECOSYSTEMS

William W.M. Steiner

Dean, College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management University of Hawai`i, Hilo

PISCES, November 2008

The nature of human ecology on planet earth has depended on extant and existing factors driven to

a large extent by co-evolutionary principles.This recognizes that human populations have not evolved alone but

via interaction with biotic and abiotic environmental factors. Key is that growing foods require essential nutrients that not only

promote plant and animal growth but also are required for its health.

These range from trace minerals and elemental molecules to bacteria and fungi that promote growth. We can use evolutionary principles and new genetic technology and knowledge to:

1. Establish solid and practical solutions to support human life off

planet.2. Establish the beginnings of a capability to conduct terraforming.3. Establish practical solutions that can benefit food production in

inhospitable environments on Earth.

NASA SBI Research & Technology Transfer 2007 Program Solicitations

The new Vision for Space Exploration encompasses needs for innovative technologies in the areas of Space Human Factors and Food Systems. Operations in confined, isolated, and foreign environments can lead to impairments of human performance. This Topic seeks methods for monitoring, modeling, and predicting human performance in the spaceflight environment. These methods and tools are needed for accurate and valid human system integration into vehicle design and operations. Additionally, significant advancements in food technologies will be needed for long-duration Lunar and Mars missions.

Extensive work has been done growing nutrients via hydroponics

UA team plans a moon garden Jan. 2, 2007 12:00 AM

Arizona researchers have already figured out how to grow fresh, leafy vegetables at the most remote spot on Earth. Now, they want to pursue a new agricultural challenge: the moon. The research team, which has been growing fruits and vegetables, such as lettuce and cucumbers, at the South Pole for the past 18 months, is building a chamber capable of raising vegetables in space. The inflatable chamber will easily fit into a rocket and run off of sunshine and recycled water.

Agriculture Objectives in LHE

• Understand the capabilities of plants to grow and thrive in the lunar gravitational field

• Understand the interactions of plants, humans and the lunar environment

• Understand the life cycles of essential elements and compounds in a mostly closed agricultural system

• Determine the extent to which lunar materials may supply needed nutrients and agricultural containment systems

Goals of the micro-engineering portion of the PISCES proposal

1. To establish a hydroponic test bed for analysis of inputs and outputs in order to understand the true needs of specific types of plants on moon-like soils;

2. Determining which microorganisms lie at the base of biological interactions of use to humans and their survival in moonlike soils;

3. Understand and manipulate the metabolic pathways that make them useful;

4. Determining the steps and tools needed to modify those organisms to make them more effective while ensuring their safe use.

Bacteria and fungi will be the workhorses in closed systems

Geobacteraceae microbes decompose organic material. •discovered in the muck of the Potomac River in 1987 •live where there's no oxygen and plenty of iron

•have ability to move electrons into metal

•use: process waste and generate electricity.

Cyanobacteria produce oxygen from inorganic material.

Rhizobacteria, Bradyrhizobium sp. mycorhizal fungi;

nitrogen fixation from air and soil components

Escherichia coli, has been engineered to produce hydrogen

First International Meeting on Microbial Solubilization: Developments in Plant and Soil Sciences. Plant and Soil, Vol. 287, 2007, 362 p.

Effect of Tilemsi phosphate rock solubilizing microorganisms on phosphorous uptake and yield of field grown wheat in Mali (B.A. Hamadoun and H. Antoun).

Differential effects of inoculations with Pseudomonas jessinil 506 (a phosphate solubilizing Bacterium) and Mesorhizobium ciceri C-2/2 strains on the growth and seed yield of Chickpea Under greenhouse and field conditions (A. Valverde et al).

Current genetic knowledge

Nitrogen fixing gene probes exist, they have been used to map and isolate N genes for transfer and concentration in target organisms; these tend to be 600 kb long.

Phosphate gene probes are being developed; the genes remain to be mapped, isolated and transferred.

Calcium genes have been mapped and await isolation and transfer.

A search for potassium mineral solubilizing genes must be done but two phosphate-potassium solubilizing strains isolated in China have been characterized

(strains KNP414 and KNP414)

Chemical soil extraction will determine baseline amounts of minerals available

A sequential extraction of plant macro-mineral nutrients (P, K, Ca,Mg, and S) in the regolith material can be performed using a modified form of the fractionation procedures described by Ilstedt et al. (2003) and Hedley et al. (1982, 1994).

The H2O-soluble and 0.2 M NH4Cl exchangeable fractions are assumed to represent readily available nutrients while the 0.2 M NaOH extracts nutrients surface-bound on metal oxides and carbonates. The 1.0 M HCl dissolves Ca, Mg, and K within carbonates; Ca, Mg, and P in apatite minerals; and possibly some P and S occluded within metal oxide crystals. The nitric-perchloric residual fraction represents the remainder of the occluded P and S, and the more recalcitrant forms of Ca, Mg, and K trapped within aluminosilicate minerals.

Terraforming (coined by SF writer Jack Williamson in 1942) is now only an

engineering feat awayFriedman and colleagues in a series of papers in the

early 1990s identified potential bacteria of use

Chroococcidiopsis sp. A primitive type of cyanobacterium, capable of surviving in a large variety of extreme conditions while generating oxygen from insolubles.

Matteia sp. desiccation-resistant cyanobacterium that can dissolve and bore through carbonate rock; has the ability to fix nitrogen.

Synthetic Bacteria?

Scientists Create First Synthetic Bacterial Genome -- Largest Chemically Defined

Structure Synthesized In The Lab

ScienceDaily (Jan. 24, 2008) — A team of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0.

Nothing to stop us from creating a single organism

Containing enhanced Ca, Mg, K, PO4, N2

Extraction genes.