could a video game like oxygen not included, be applicable to real life; IE: could we produce enough oxygen in a confined environment with just plants/machines?
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The International Space Station uses the electricity from its solar panel to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is added to the air inside to keep it the same composition as we are used to. The water comes from the water recycling system which gets it from the dehumidifiers and the urine collection system.
The International Space Station uses the electricity from its solar panel to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is added to the air inside to keep it the same composition as we are used to. The water comes from the water recycling system which gets it from the dehumidifiers and the urine collection system.
The International Space Station uses the electricity from its solar panel to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is added to the air inside to keep it the same composition as we are used to. The water comes from the water recycling system which gets it from the dehumidifiers and the urine collection system.
Well, in a sense we already do: that’s what the Earth is, just on a big scale. There have been experiments to try to do it in smaller environments as well, and of course all space travel necessarily involves some degree of this.
In practice, though, oxygen isn’t the problem: carbon dioxide is. CO2 becomes toxic at about 1% (at sea level pressure, which I’ll assume throughout), and 10% will knock you out pretty quickly, then kill you. That happens well before you run out of oxygen, at least if you started with the typical 21% oxygen/very small amount (typically <~0.1%) of CO2 that you find in normal air. Most enclosed environments carry oxygen tanks, which is easy, but scrubbing CO2 from the air requires other approaches.
None of this is physically impossible or anything, it’s just an engineering and chemistry problem.
Well, in a sense we already do: that’s what the Earth is, just on a big scale. There have been experiments to try to do it in smaller environments as well, and of course all space travel necessarily involves some degree of this.
In practice, though, oxygen isn’t the problem: carbon dioxide is. CO2 becomes toxic at about 1% (at sea level pressure, which I’ll assume throughout), and 10% will knock you out pretty quickly, then kill you. That happens well before you run out of oxygen, at least if you started with the typical 21% oxygen/very small amount (typically <~0.1%) of CO2 that you find in normal air. Most enclosed environments carry oxygen tanks, which is easy, but scrubbing CO2 from the air requires other approaches.
None of this is physically impossible or anything, it’s just an engineering and chemistry problem.
Well, in a sense we already do: that’s what the Earth is, just on a big scale. There have been experiments to try to do it in smaller environments as well, and of course all space travel necessarily involves some degree of this.
In practice, though, oxygen isn’t the problem: carbon dioxide is. CO2 becomes toxic at about 1% (at sea level pressure, which I’ll assume throughout), and 10% will knock you out pretty quickly, then kill you. That happens well before you run out of oxygen, at least if you started with the typical 21% oxygen/very small amount (typically <~0.1%) of CO2 that you find in normal air. Most enclosed environments carry oxygen tanks, which is easy, but scrubbing CO2 from the air requires other approaches.
None of this is physically impossible or anything, it’s just an engineering and chemistry problem.
Yes. Submarines and spacecraft already do this. Splitting water with electricity turns it into hydrogen and oxygen. Through use of CO2 scrubbers, it’s possible to remove CO2 from the air. There are both disposable(something absorbs it and needs to be disposed of) and regenerative (something absorbs it and the material can be processed to further remove it) methods to do it.
Yes. Submarines and spacecraft already do this. Splitting water with electricity turns it into hydrogen and oxygen. Through use of CO2 scrubbers, it’s possible to remove CO2 from the air. There are both disposable(something absorbs it and needs to be disposed of) and regenerative (something absorbs it and the material can be processed to further remove it) methods to do it.
Yes. Submarines and spacecraft already do this. Splitting water with electricity turns it into hydrogen and oxygen. Through use of CO2 scrubbers, it’s possible to remove CO2 from the air. There are both disposable(something absorbs it and needs to be disposed of) and regenerative (something absorbs it and the material can be processed to further remove it) methods to do it.
Machine based life support systems exist, but I don’t know how easy it would be to make them entirely self sufficient. It would be hard to fit the entire industrial base to maintain a habitat long term inside such a habitat.
Plant based self contained habitats have been tried before, such as Biosphere 2, but they didn’t quite manage to be self sufficient. In principle it should work, but you’ll need large scale experimentation to work out the details.
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