What is it about?
This paper rethinks how to design a permanent human presence on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Instead of focusing only on technology, it argues that astronaut well-being, honest sustainability metrics, hybrid life-support systems, and nuclear power are the true foundations of a space ecosystem that can endure.
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Why is it important?
This paper treats the space ecosystem as a systems-engineering problem grounded in Human Systems Integration (HSI), rigorous sustainability metrics, and empirically validated technology. Its central argument is that a space ecosystem cannot be considered truly resilient if its human operators are not themselves psychologically and physically resilient. This reframing is significant because it elevates human factors from a peripheral concern to the primary design driver. The paper makes three specific contributions. First, it critiques the two dominant sustainability metrics used in life-support system design [Percent Closure and Equivalent System Mass (ESM)] and demonstrates how they have led to suboptimal, overly complex, and expensive technology choices. In their place, it proposes a multi-criteria evaluation framework centered on Safety, Availability (via TRL), Performance, and Life Cycle Cost, supplemented by a System Complexity Metric (SCM = N + I) that quantifies the inverse relationship between system complexity and reliability. Second, it advocates for hybrid life-support architectures that combine the reliability of physicochemical systems (like those on the ISS, which recycle over 90% of water) with the efficiency of bioregenerative systems (validated by Russia's BIOS-3, China's Lunar Palace 1, and ESA's MELiSSA program). BioSim simulations show that hybrid systems become mass-optimal for lunar missions lasting approximately four years and Mars missions of 4.8 years. Third, it provides an honest technology assessment: MOXIE demonstrated atmospheric oxygen production on Mars at 12 grams per hour, but crew-scale operations require roughly 30 kilograms per hour; a three-to-four-order-of-magnitude gap. Nuclear fission power (NASA's Kilopower/FSP program) is identified as the indispensable baseline for continuous lunar operations, while nuclear thermal propulsion (NASA/DARPA's DRACO project) promises to halve Mars transit times. The proposed Space Ecosystem Organization (SE Org), modeled on ICAO, provides the institutional architecture for coordinating these technical elements across multiple celestial bodies. This work matters because it replaces aspiration with engineering discipline, offering a falsifiable, evidence-based roadmap.
Perspectives
This is the most personal of my publications because it represents my attempt to synthesize everything I have learned across my other papers (spaceports, logistics, sovereignty, satellite servicing, traffic management) into a single coherent vision of what a resilient space ecosystem actually requires. I built a methodology that forces me (and the reader) to distinguish between what we have demonstrated and what we hope to achieve. The critique of Percent Closure and ESM metrics is, I believe, the most important section. For decades, the life-support community has optimized for the wrong numbers. Chasing 98% closure instead of 90% closure sounds like progress, but if it doubles system complexity, triples development cost, and introduces new failure modes, it is not progress at all. The System Complexity Metric SCM = N + I, where N is the number of nodes and I is the number of interactions, captures this trade-off quantitatively. Research shows that Mean Time Between Failures is inversely related to SCM, meaning that every additional subsystem you add makes the whole thing more likely to fail. That insight should change how we design life-support systems. The human factors emphasis is equally deliberate. Data from HI-SEAS, Concordia Station, and ISS missions consistently show that isolation, confinement, and communication delays degrade crew mood, cohesion, and cognitive performance. Privacy deprivation is strongly correlated with interpersonal conflict. Circadian disruption (from 16 sunrises and sunsets per day on the ISS) causes chronic sleep loss. These are engineering constraints as real as radiation shielding or propellant mass. If we design habitats that are technically perfect but psychologically unbearable, the missions will fail. The SE Org proposal emerged from a frustration I felt repeatedly: every paper I wrote kept encountering the same institutional vacuum. Who sets docking standards for a lunar spaceport? Who adjudicates competing water-ice claims at Shackleton Crater? Who enforces planetary protection when a commercial company wants to mine a scientifically sensitive asteroid? The answer, today, is no one. The mandate-gap analysis in Table 5 makes this explicit: the unfilled functions are cross-cutting, and no current body holds a mandate spanning them. My hope is that this paper becomes a reference point for the conversations that will inevitably happen as Artemis missions return humans to the lunar surface. The success of humanity's multiplanetary future will be measured by the well-being, agency, and dignity of the people who call these new worlds home.
Wanjiku Chebet Kanjumba
University of Florida
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Designing a Resilient Space Ecosystem: Advanced Technologies, Sustainability Metrics, and Human-Centric Operations, January 2026, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2026-2635.
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