Division Director Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Exposure Research Laboratory
Designers of long term space missions are challenged to develop life support systems in the absence of ecological services, requiring a framework based on recovery of resources from the “wastes” produced from human activity. The lack of any existing water systems in space provides a creative space with limited “sunk-cost” bias related to “the way things are”. This talk, from a researcher who spent 25 years working on bioregenerative systems in space before returning to Earth to work for EPA, will emphasize how Earth-based designers of water systems can employ the resource recovery paradigm and minimize existing biases to alternative design. Examples from current work on decentralized reuse options will be discussed, including the need to simultaneously reduce contaminant risks and life cycle impacts (i.e., balancing proximal and distal risks).
