Membrane Based Habitat Wall Architectures for Life Support and Evolving Structures

Current space system architecture is severely limited by launch cost associated with the mass of building and radiation protection materials, limits to the size (volume) of habitat elements that can be lifted, and the life cycle design requirements for technologies that provide life support materials recycle, particularly air and water. This study proposes a system for membrane based water, solids and air treatment functions that is embedded into the walls of inflatable habitat structures to provide potentially radical mass reuse and structural advantages over current mechanical life support hardware operating within rigid habitat envelopes. This approach would allow part of the water and air treatment, and all of the solids residuals treatment and recycle, to be removed from the usable habitat volume while providing a mechanism to recover and reuse water treatment residuals (solids) to strengthen the habitat shell, provide thermal control, and radiation shielding. The same embedded membrane treatment elements would first for a time provide primary (1 st stage) wastewater treatment, then provide solids accumulation and stabilization, and finally become a permanent structural element for the mature habitat shell. Secondary air treatment membrane elements similarly located are also briefly considered as potential future additions to the treatment architecture. The technology used is not speculative but is based on established emergency water recovery technology being used in the Light Weight Contingency ‐ Water Recovery Apparatus (LWC-WRS), Direct Osmotic Concentration (DOC) but in a scaled up version. As such all hardware proposed is based on commercial off the shelf products and materials, and the 1 st stage water treatment is well demonstrated and documentation indicates better than 90% water recovery as a first stage treatment for hygiene water and urine. Thus, the proposed technology is based upon proven engineering solutions that will be analytically demonstrated to potently serve a much larger role in future space architecture. In addition it should be noted that the concept of using a water wall for thermal and radiation shielding is the current baseline assumption for planetary base habitats and rovers.