Technologies for Sustainable Space Exploration and Terrestrial Sustainability

The world's space agencies have renewed their efforts to push human exploration deeper into the solar system, which brings a new set of challenges. In particular, this distance from Earth requires establishing a “sustainable” human presence in space. This sustainability requires not just near complete recycling of all mass in the spacecraft, but also the ability to dynamically repurpose mass for immediate needs. Additionally, sustainable technologies are needed on Earth to shape a future where natural resource consumption by humans is balanced with the rates of resource regeneration, driven by either nature itself or engineered solutions.

This multi-disciplinary Research Topic aims to highlight emerging scientific understanding and technological advancements that drive sustainability at the intersection of human space exploration and terrestrial applications. Of particular interest is research that, through its development in support of long-duration spaceflight, can be translated to provide benefits for all humanity.

This Research Topic is cross-listed with a number of Frontiers journals and sections and we welcome submissions of fundamental biological and physical science research including Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Methods, Perspective and Opinion articles. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Applications of extremophiles for sustainable space exploration;

• Monitoring and control of indoor microbiome for the sustained presence of humans in space and future habitations;

• Host-microbial interaction for human and plant health in the space environment;

• Dysbiosis during spaceflight and upon return to earth to understand links with health consequences;

• Bioengineering (e.g., life support, in situ resource utilization, nutrition, etc.);

• Development of technologies for sustainable fuel use for space exploration;

• Biodegradation of space waste technologies for space applications.