SIMOC papers presented at ICES 2021
The SIMOC team has presented two papers at the International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES), July 12-14, 2021.
Visit the Publications page at SAM to learn more …
Space Radio with Dr. Paul Sutter
Astrophysicist Dr. Paul Sutter interviews SAM Director Kai Staats from within the Biosphere 2!
“This week on Space Radio I had the opportunity to catch up with my good friend Kai Staats. Kai joined us from the grounds of the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 as we talked about his newest project, Space Analog for the Moon and Mars. Among other topics, we discussed the removal of perchlorates from the Martian soil and how Methane could potentially be used.” — Dr. Sutter
Moving into Phase V of SIMOC development
As the SIMOC team transitions from Phase IV into Phase V development, we are shifting design and coding gears from a year spent principally in improving the scalability and stability of the SIMOC deployment across Google Cloud Platform coupled with several improvements to the user interface, back into an effort to more closely define the agent interactions, improving their real-world representation.
How to make fuel from ice
Science educator and writer Dan Heim answers the question, “I know there’s water ice on the Moon and Mars, and I get how it can be melted and used for drinking, but I don’t get how they can make rocket fuel out of it. — WJ, Provo, UT”
Dan provides an animated answer at Sky Lights …
SIMOC and SAM featured at Sky-Lights, by science educator Dan Heim
Former high school physics professor, lifelong amateur astronomer, and author of the Sky Lights, a weekly blog about things you see in the sky (and some you can’t see). Dan’s animated essays cover a wide range of disciplines including astronomy, meteorology, climatology, chemistry, physics, optics, earth & space science, and others.
This past two publications Dan has discussed Surviving in Space, with an emphasis on what it would take to make the International Space Station self-sustaining versus a habitat on the Moon or Mars. Dan writes, “Last week we looked at whether the ISS could be made totally self-sufficient and never require supply missions from Earth. The short answer was “yes” but the practical answer was “no”. However, in a colony on a moon or planet where outside resources (like water and minerals) are available, self-sufficiency is much easier.”
Surviving in Space – Part 1 and Part 2.
Enjoy!
SIMOC Phase IVa upgrade live at Nat Geo
The first of the Phase IV updates to SIMOC is now live at the National Geographic Educational Resource Library. This release marks a return to the evolution of the SIMOC user interface after several months work on an automated build and deployment pipeline by the development team. The current effort is focused on reducing the quantity of dashboard panels where in a single panel will have an inset pull-down menu with multiple options.
Now the Production / Consumption panel can display carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, and energy. Front-end developer Ezio Melotti states, “With the automated build and deployment system in place, we are now able to release SIMOC updates on a regular basis with the confidence of a fully tested environment. This first release lays the foundation for many more to come, soon.”
Researchers integrate SIMOC into realworld experiments
Researchers Brittany Zimmerman, MSc of the University of North Dakota and Sean Gellenbeck, PhD student of the University of Arizona are each working on advanced plant physiology experiments in which SIMOC is integrated into their research project.
Sean will be growing mushrooms and algae in a closed/sealed environment while at the HI-SEAS analog on the Big Island of Hawaii. His work will introduce a new cultivar to SIMOC. Brittany will be conducting an experiment similar to that of Kai Staats in 2019 at the Biosphere 2. Where Kai and his team monitored CO2, photosynthetic activated radiation (PAR), temperature, relative humidity, and biomass accumulation for barley fodder to give foundation to a non-linear growth function, Brittany will be growing a number of cultivars already contained in the SIMOC model to compare the simulation data to the real experiments.
Both Brittany and Sean will be directly modifying the agent description file for a local installation of SIMOC. This enables them to customize the SIMOC simulation to match the working conditions of their experiments, including volume, air flow, ambient CO2, PAR etc.
We wish them both the best of luck, and are eager to publish the results later in 2021.
SIMOC Phase IV development update
Our resident coding wizards have completed the arduous task of updating the SIMOC build environment (good things in computer land always take longer than anticipated) and we are ready to get back to making SIMOC a higher fidelity, more engaging experience on Mars for you!
SIMOC Phase IV development update
Iurii and Ezio have made significant progress on the new build environment for SIMOC. This updated system enables incremental updates to the SIMOC back-end and front-end code base without invoking a full system rebuild, and automated migration to our beta and National Geographic servers. It may not seem like much, but it will make a world of difference to our development process and overall, the quality of our code.
We are excited to dive into an improved user experience, soon!
SIMOC Phase IV development has begun
We are working hard at constructing a new build environment for SIMOC, enabling automated unit testing and the ability to updates portions of a live build, without replacing the whole thing.
SIMOC Phase IV will include a molecular-level validation of key currency exchanges between agents, consolidation of similar panels with drop-down menus, new panels to provide a greater diversity of real-time information monitoring, and tracking of nutrition from food harvest to human consumption.
More to come, stay tuned!