Scientists have found critical gaps in Nasa’s development of space life support systems that could prevent the United States from competing with China in the pursuit of long-term manned space exploration and habitation. While Beijing and Moscow have joined forces to establish a lunar research base, Washington’s limited support for bioregenerative life support research puts its space competitiveness at risk, a team of scientists including Nasa researchers has found.
The team said that past research and policy decisions – such as funding and programme cuts – had created “critical gaps” in Nasa’s current space habitation capabilities.
“Now on the verge of returning to the moon, Nasa needs to develop the critical capabilities required to build and operate a lunar outpost,” the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal npj Microgravity on August 16.
The paper was written by researchers from Purdue University, Northeastern University, Utah State University, the University of Utah, and Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre and Ames Research Centre.
The existing approach to space life support systems in the US, including for the International Space Station (ISS), involves resupply trips to transport water, food and other consumable materials.
Long-term human missions past Earth’s orbit to the moon or Mars are limited by the massive costs and logistics issues associated with resupply launches, along with safety concerns about the impact of radiation and microgravity on the human body, the team said.

科学家发现，NASA在空间生命支持系统研发方面存在关键缺口，这可能阻碍美国在长期载人太空探索与居住方面与中国竞争。包括NASA研究人员在内的一组科学家指出，在北京和莫斯科已联手建立月球研究基地时，华盛顿对生物再生生命支持系统（BLSS）研究的有限支持，使其太空竞争力面临风险。
研究团队表示，过去的研究与政策决策，如经费及项目削减，导致NASA当前太空居住能力存在“关键缺口”。
“在即将重返月球之际，NASA需要开发建设和运营月球前哨所所需的关键能力，”该团队在8月16日发表于同行评审期刊《npj Microgravity》的一篇论文中写道。
该论文作者来自普渡大学、东北大学、犹他州立大学、犹他大学、以及NASA肯尼迪航天中心和艾姆斯研究中心。
美国当前空间生命支持系统的做法，包括国际空间站（ISS）在内，依赖补给任务运送水、食物及其他消耗物资。团队指出，执行超越地球轨道的长期载人任务，如前往月球或火星，将因补给发射带来的巨大成本和后勤难题而受限，同时还需应对辐射和微重力对人体影响的安全隐患。

“If we were to execute a Mars mission right now, we would be facing many unknowns,” said D. Marshall Porterfield, corresponding author of the paper and a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue.
“The most significant of it is what’s going to happen to the human body in that radiation environment,” said Porterfield, who from 2012 to 2016 served as division director for space life and physical sciences at Nasa headquarters, where he oversaw the development of science for future human exploration.
Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) – or artificial ecosystems that leverage biological organisms to recycle and generate resources like oxygen, food and water – offer a better solution for long-term human missions in deep space.
These systems, also referred to as BLiSS, use plants, animals and microorganisms to create a sustainable, closed-loop environment that can provide essential survival needs such as food and waste management.
“The lack of availability of BLiSS technologies and systems – both at the governmental and commercial levels – currently limits the obxtives of human-crewed lunar exploration programmes,” the team wrote.
Porterfield said that the US had the “completely wrong model for how we need to go to space”, with a focus on being a logistics transporter rather than a logistics provider.

“如果我们现在执行火星任务，将面临许多未知因素，”论文通讯作者、普渡大学农业与生物工程教授D·马歇尔·波特菲尔德表示。
“其中最重要的问题是，在那样的辐射环境下人体会发生什么，”波特菲尔德补充道。他曾于2012至2016年担任NASA总部空间生命与物理科学部主任，负责为未来载人探索制定科学计划。
生物再生生命支持系统（BLSS），或称利用生物体循环再生氧气、食物和水资源的人工生态系统，为深空长期载人任务提供了更优解决方案。
这些系统（也称为BLiSS），通过植物、动物和微生物，创造可持续的闭环环境，满足生存所需资源如食物和废物管理。
“目前，无论在政府还是商业层面，BLiSS技术和系统的缺乏都限制了载人月球探索计划的目标实现，”研究团队写道。
波特菲尔德表示，美国采用了“完全错误的太空模式”，更像是一个后勤运输者而非后勤服务提供者。

A bioregenerative approach was the focus of earlier Nasa research, including the development of sustainable agricultural systems for space exploration in the 1990s, which helped to birth the controlled environment agriculture industry.
That next phase for Nasa was the Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Systems Test Complex (BIO-Plex), a facility which aimed to uate life support systems that could supply food, water and a breathable atmosphere for future space missions.
In 2004, it was discontinued and physically demolished after a large-scale study led to budget cuts and a shift in research priorities, the team said.
“The budgets for Nasa to develop these bioregenerative technologies were cut and never restored,” Porterfield said.
Remaining bioregenerative technologies research is now facing further funding cuts under the Trump administration’s 2026 budget, he added.
While US support for bioregenerative life support research waned after the early 2000s, the team said that this research had been “embraced and advanced” by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) over the past two decades.

早期NASA研究曾聚焦生物再生方法，包括上世纪90年代开发的空间可持续农业系统，这一研究也促生了受控环境农业产业。
NASA的下一阶段计划是行星生物再生生命支持系统测试综合体（BIO-Plex），旨在评估可为未来太空任务提供食物、水和可呼吸大气的生命支持系统。
但据团队称，2004年该项目在大规模研究后因预算削减和研究重点转移被取消并拆除。
“开发这些生物再生技术的NASA预算被削减后从未恢复，”波特菲尔德说。
他还补充，目前仅存的生物再生技术研究在特朗普政府2026年预算下面临进一步削减。
团队指出，2000年代初后美国对生物再生生命支持研究的支持减弱，而中国国家航天局（CNSA）在过去二十年间“积极采纳并推进”了这项研究。

The team said that published BIO-Plex plans “supported CNSA’s efforts to swiftly establish a bioregenerative habitat technology programme for an operational human lunar outpost and, subsequently, to demonstrate its viability”.
The Lunar Palace 1 at Beihang University in Beijing is China’s first integrated experimental facility for a permanent artificial closed ecosystem life support system, which includes cabins for vegetation, facilities for waste disposal, dining and bedrooms, according to the university.
“Besides the Chinese efforts, there are currently no other official programmes pursuing a fully integrated, closed-loop bioregenerative architecture for establishing lunar or Martian habitats, or even for sustaining long-term human presence in space,” the researchers said.
They added that recently published plans from CNSA showed that the country “has surpassed the US and its allies in both scale and preeminence of these emerging efforts and technologies, especially as compared to Nasa’s current programmes”.

团队表示，已公开的BIO-Plex计划“支持了CNSA迅速建立生物再生居住技术计划，用于运行载人月球前哨所，并证明其实用性”。
据北京航空航天大学介绍，中国的“月宫一号”是首个永久性人工闭合生态生命支持系统试验设施，内设植物舱、废物处理设施、餐厅和卧室等。
“除中国外，目前没有其他官方项目在追求完全整合、闭环的生物再生架构，以建立月球或火星居住地，甚至维持长期人类太空存在，”研究人员表示。
他们补充，CNSA最新公布的计划显示，中国已在这些新兴努力和技术的规模及领先性方面超越美国及其盟友，尤其是与NASA当前项目相比。

Although China was not allowed to join the ISS, it will soon be the only country with a human presence in Earth’s orbit in the form of the Tiangong space station, launched in 2021.
China and Russia – along with partners from over a dozen countries – are working to set up the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a planned permanent research base at the moon’s south pole set to be established by the mid-2030s.
The Soviet unx conducted some of the earliest studies of bioregenerative systems, including through the BIOS-3, a closed life support system that began construction in the 1960s and ran for several decades.
This makes the collaboration between China and Russia on the ILRS a “formidable partnership”, as the programme combines decades of Russian space experience with China’s advanced and well-funded space programme, the team said.
“Russia has been operating closed systems habitat development since the 1950s and are the technical world leaders,” Porterfield said, adding that the alliance between the two countries made them capable of building a long-term lunar habitat on schedule.
“In stark contrast to the thriving Chinese programme, these key advances and shown BLiSS capabilities have not been addressed by the American programme, which does not currently include plans to rebuild the Nasa programmes cancelled in 2004,” the team said.
“The US space programme, therefore, faces a multi-year challenge merely to revive and rebuild the required facilities and infrastructure.”

尽管中国未获准加入ISS，但随着2021年天宫空间站的发射，中国很快将成为唯一在地球轨道维持载人存在的国家。
中俄及十余个国家的合作伙伴正致力于建立国际月球研究站（ILRS），计划在2030年代中期于月球南极建立永久性研究基地。
苏联曾开展最早的生物再生系统研究，包括1960年代建设并持续运行数十年的BIOS-3闭合生命支持系统。
研究团队表示，这使得中俄在ILRS上的合作成为“强大联盟”，因该项目结合了俄罗斯几十年的空间经验和中国先进且资金充足的航天计划。
“自上世纪50年代起，俄罗斯就一直在开发闭合生态居住系统，是技术领域的世界领袖，”波特菲尔德说，并补充两国联盟有能力按时建成长期月球居住地。
“与蓬勃发展的中国项目形成鲜明对比的是，美国项目并未解决这些关键进展和已展现的BLiSS能力，目前也无重建2004年被取消NASA项目的计划，”团队表示。
“因此，美国太空计划仅仅为了恢复和重建所需的设施与基础设施，就面临着持续多年的挑战。”