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Photos of 2019 BIG Idea Challenge Forum Awards Ceremony, plus winning teams. Marsboreal Greenhouse Design

NASA’s 2019 BIG Idea Challenge Winner Designs Best Planetary Greenhouse

Dartmouth was announced the winning team of the fourth annual Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge April 24 at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Massachusetts Institute of Technology University was awarded second place.

NASA’s BIG Idea Challenge engages universities in engineering design to develop space exploration concepts for the Moon to Mars. Earlier this year, five innovative designs for a human-scale Marsboreal greenhouse were selected to compete in the 2019 BIG Idea forum. Teams from Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California Davis, University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Michigan convened at Langley April 23 to present their greenhouse designs and prototypes. The ideas are derived from the Mars ice home designs, with potential aspects that could be demonstrated on the Moon.

Similar to the SIMOC research project at the Biosphere 2, it was determined that SIMOC could be used to generate non-linear functions for CO2 sequestration for each of the principal plants used in the Dartmouth team’s design, thereby enabling a data-driven model for the transpiration of the total plant ecology. The Dartmouth team worked tirelessly to conduct an extensive literature review and data extraction, from which SIMOC was programmed to generate a reciprocal dataset and function for each of the modeled plants.

Learn more at NASA.gov …

The Arizona Science Center, located at the heart of the Phoenix metropolitan district, today agreed to host the world’s first SIMOC learning center. Their “Blue Team” will host live, iterative and interactive learning sessions in which visitors learn about the challenges of living off of planet Earth.

In a conversational format, visitors will be asked to consider which of two dozen plants would they bring to grow in a human habitat on the Moon or Mars in order to support carbon dioxide reduction, oxygen production, and nutritious foods. Engaged citizen scientists will have to find a balance between those plants that yield a high volume of oxygen yet may require a long time from planting to harvest, or simply not taste very good without extensive preparation, versus those you can eat almost immediately after removing from the soil or hydroponics grow chamber.

By selecting plants in the SIMOC model, which is built upon NASA plant study data, we see the outcome of several weeks, even months of bioregenerative life support systems in a matter of minutes.

The first live demo and training discussion is slated for March 6, 2019.

Stay tuned!

Today, the Paragon Space Development Corporation agreed to assist the SIMOC team in the refining of its Environmental Control and Life Support Systems data and associated model so as to more closely match real-world human-in-the-loop environments within the SIMOC simulation.

Learn about Paragon …

The National Geographic Society (NGS) has agreed to host SIMOC on their Educational Resource Library, providing world-wide access to this iterative, interactive citizen science educational tool. In preparation for this monumental public launch, NGS and a host of educational professionals will provide guidance for the improvement of the SIMOC web interface and teacher-student workbooks.

Learn more about at National Geographic Education Resource library

Based outside of Oracle, Arizona, the world-renowned Biosphere 2 today provided the SIMOC team with a letter of intent to collaborate in a live experiment for which SIMOC will work to duplicate the data collected in simulation, followed by collaboration with the Arizona Science Center for a live data stream.

“Biosphere 2 has its roots in off-world, human exploration–the initial experiments designed to study what is required to sustain human life when our species becomes interplanetary.

“SIMOC presents a timely new approach to [model] bioregeneration. We are keen to learn how to customize SIMOC’s agent-based model to mirror active and near-future experiments … We therefore welcome the opportunity to be the world’s first organization to … conduct model-to-data comparisons as well as introduce a unique, hands-on educational experience for our visitors.”

Joaquin Ruiz, Director Biosphere 2
Vice President, Innovation and Dean, College of Science
University of Arizona

Learn more about Biosphere 2 …

Based in downtown Phoenix, the Arizona Science Center today provided the SIMOC team with a letter of intent to collaborate in the design and engagement of an interactive learning experience based upon the SIMOC off-world simulation.

“With NASA and space agencies around the globe working with private organizations such as SpaceX to pave the way for humans to become interplanetary, it is important to instill in learners a sense of the challenges and opportunities in this incredible endeavor.

“… we welcome an opportunity to collaborate with you and your team to be the first science center world-wide to host a SIMOC kiosk in our science center, with potential for a live-data feed from a SIMOC-enabled greenhouse at Biosphere 2.”

Sari Custer
Chief Curiosity Officer

Learn more about the Arizona Science Center …