How
to Colonize an Asteroid
How
to Colonize an Asteroid
There are no plant or animal species on this planet which can survive without the help of other life forms, and these life forms all interact with the elements in the environment to create what we call an ecosystem. Ecosystems come in two basic varieties - "open" or "closed". An open ecological system is one which requires supplies of chemicals or food to be added periodiaclly, and waste products must be removed. An example of an open ecosystem would be a home aquairium where you have to feed the fish and tend the filters - it requires intervention to continue functioning. In a closed ecosystem, materials and waste products are continually recycled and nothing needs to be added, except energy, for the system to keep operating.
The only way for our asteroid colonists to survive is to create closed life support (ecological) systems on both the colony ship and in the asteroid colony. To do this we will first have to understand the only proven ecosystem we know - our own "Earth".
Earth is considered to be a "closed" ecosystem - everything we have is continuously recyled through different sub systems, or "cycle"
