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Self-replicating radiation-shield for deep-space exploration: Radiotrophic fungi
- TonyRobbins 5y ago
- narrator 5y agoA likely way to cut the Gordian Knot of outer space radiation exposure is to prophylactically have everyone take C60. See the study below. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0041008X0900475X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00410...
- Kyragem 5y agoAstrophage!!!! if only we could it for fuel too.
- ianai 5y agospecies: Cladosporium sphaerospermum """ radiation beneath a ≈ 1.7 mm thick lawn of the dematiaceous radiotrophic fungus was 2.17±0.25% lower as compared to the negative control. In addition, a growth advantage in Space of ~ 21% was observed, substantiating the thesis that the fungus’ radiotropism is extendable to Space radiation. """
- ianai 5y agoConsider on the low end ((2.17-.25)% per 1.7 mm thick) this works out to 88.6 mm for 100% coverage or around 3.5 inches. I'm wondering whether the fungus could actually be grown to various thicknesses, or is 1.7mm kind of its natural thickness? Might need a layer system of some sort. I'm really thinking I should burn some time on learning about fungi and bacteria. It'd be cool if there were some ecosystem of them capable of taking in human waste as input and outputting useful things like cleaner water and shielding. (Replied to myself since the other comment is older.)
- satya71 5y agoYou'd need about 400mm thick layer to cut radiation to 1% of incident at 2% per layer.
- phdelightful 5y agoDoes it actually work like that or does each successive 1.7mm multiply the radiation flux by 0.98? And then the inner layers will get less radiation and grow less well also?
- ianai 5y agoYeah if it's like that, I get around .9 meters thick for blocking 99.999997%. I'd like to see what a 10x thicker fungus could block. That would help inform how it's likely to flesh out at scale.
- version_five 5y agoThis is correct, each incremental layer would block 2% of what is incident on it, not knock 2% off the starting number
- sailingparrot 5y ago> ((2.17-.25)% per 1.7 mm thick) this works out to 88.6 mm for 100% coverage or around 3.5 inches. 2.17% is when only one side is shielded: "it can be extrapolated that the biomass would reduce total radiation levels (of the measured spectrum) by 4.34±0.5% were it fully surrounding an object" But your assumption that this thing scale linearly is far from reality, see for example their estimate for Mars: "In a case study we estimated that a ~ 2.3 m layer of melanized fungal biomass (8.6% [wmelanin/wCWW] melanin-content) would be needed to lower Martian radiation levels to those on Earth (from 234 mSv/a to 6.2 mSv/a [6, 7, 53])" ISS is at apporximately 144 mSv/a.
- ianai 5y agoI think it's probably fair to say this is early research and much more would need to be done. I also figure this could be done on earth and tested against various radiation sources.
- ByThyGrace 5y agoSo what is "growth advantage" and why is the 21% figure meaningul?
- plutonorm 5y agoThe fungus grows better in space. Probably because it's radiographic (uses radiation for energy). But also possibly because it came from space and incidentally populates environments on earth (I'm semi serious).
- MauranKilom 5y agoI don't think the conditions on random meteors are in any way comparable to some lab in the ISS...
- AndrewDucker 5y agoIt's a fascinating idea. But 2% lower radiation isn't going to do nearly enough.
- Aspos 5y agoIt is 2% with the current strain of the fungus which may evolve in the future.
- biorach 5y agoThat's with a 1.7mm layer of fungus. This looks to be proof of concept research. Whether thicker layers can be used to provide comprehensive protection is for future research to establish. (and it's unlikely to be a linear relationship)
- kangaroozach 5y agoEncapsulate the entire vessel in a membrane of fungi? No windows just fungi-bubble deep-space faring?
- f6v 5y agoISS doesn’t have that many windows for a reason.
- blamestross 5y agoNow this is the solarpunk/biopunk future I signed up for. Symbiotic radiation shielding fungi for space exploration!
- ape4 5y agoWhen we meet some aliens they might greet the fungus instead of us
- f6v 5y agoWhen we meet some aliens they’re likely to be fungus, at best.
- hinkley 5y agoWhy have they decorated their ships with dead bodies? What sort of barbarians are we dealing with here?
- MauranKilom 5y agoDecorating the ship with dead fungi would be very pointless though. You could use most any other material for the same effect.
- nynx 5y agoClearly the end goal for this research is figuring out why the fungi can block radiation and taking advantage of that for better radiation shielding. We’re not going to be flying around in spaceships coated in fungi.
- kortex 5y agoI mean why not? Hard radiation tends to destroy whatever it hits on a molecular/atomic level. If you have a biological shield which is constantly refreshing itself, you can possibly have a much lighter assembly. Mycelium has also been used to purify water. It might be possible to integrate shielding with water storage/buffer and recycling. It'll probably require layering different types of material to convert higher energy radiation (like cosmic rays) to more manageable spectra.
- FredPret 5y agoIf we had a fungi that could purify water and block out deep space radiation, that would be one sweet mushroom. Better hope it doesn’t die halway to Mars!
- kortex 5y agoYeah, that would be something we'd want to do long-scale simulation tests of before setting sail. Build a simulated spaceship, probably in orbit for maximum accuracy, and see how everything holds up. Tbh I'd be more concerned about the humans cracking psychologically before the fungus dying. They are hardy buggers.
- ipodopt 5y agoWe don't want a material that builds and repairs itself? Anyhow, seems like they think it is the concentration of melanin in the fungi. The melanin has been sequenced and it is the same type found in human skin. Maybe we will see this adaptation in space fairing humans... Wonder if current black astronauts are less effected by radiation. EDIT: Probably something that will seem so obvious in hindsight.
- choeger 5y agoWhat is it with all the fuzz a out fungi in space lately? Is Discovery so well-liked or is it the other way around? Serious question: How does the fungus release the energy? heat? Could we use them as some kind of biological radiation thermal panels on Mars?
- dnautics 5y agoMy guess is that the original paper is artefactual, but there's no reason a priori that an organism couldn't take large classes of ionizing radiation and turn it directly into chemical energy, ionizing radiation, after all, effects chemical transformations.
- yummypaint 5y agoFor the record, here is the correct math for attenuation of high energy photons with a nice explanation from NIST: https://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/chap2.html https://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/chap2.html The coefficient in the exponential is 0.0161/mm for these data, so a 100 mm thick layer will stop 80% of their measured spectrum. A 200 mm thick layer will stop 96%. The same relationship applies for higher energy gammas as well, but the coefficents will be energy dependent.
- kgc 5y agoWhere does the additional mass come from when the fungi reproduces in space?
- Tagbert 5y agoProbably water and air. Combine that with the radiation and trace elements from the water and you have enough to build tissue.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- suifbwish 5y agoTechnically light can be converted into mass, but I’m not sure that’s relevant here.
- jxcole 5y agoIIUC most of the mass required to build plants comes out of the air (CO2). Of course, any astronauts wanting to utilize these fungi will have to take some amount of other resources with them. The most important measure for any radiation shielding in space is weight. We have great technology for blocking all radiation today: lead plating. This is obviously way to heavy for space. Alternative suggestions have been to surround the astronauts with water which presents a lot of challenge in terms of plumbing and weight. Having the walls covered in fungi may actually be a much lighter option, I certainly hope the idea is well considered.
- meepmorp 5y ago> IIUC most of the mass required to build plants comes out of the air (CO2). Fungi aren't plants, though. edit: they're heterotrophs - they get their food from more complex materials than autotrophs, which generate their raw material largely from carbon extracted from the atmosphere.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
- MertsA 5y agoI don't understand the interest here. It's not like fungi are magically more effective than virtually any other mass at absorbing ionizing radiation and subatomic particles. "Self-replicating" is meaningless when it needs to consume water and carbon sources to do so which on their own would probably be denser and more effective per unit volume at shielding. Chemistry has next to nothing to do with radiation shielding let alone biology.
- omginternets 5y agoI imagine this might be interesting for longer distances in which broken shielding might not be so easily replaced. In such cases, regenerating your shielding via life-support systems is a feature, not a bug.
- lumost 5y agoWhy not fly with a pre pulverized shield? There aren't many big forces on a long distance space hall and one could imagine using electrostatic forces to hold the pulverized shielding in place. No need to regrow the radiation shield then.
- omginternets 5y agoWhy not indeed. Why not investigate growing a shield as well?
- IHLayman 5y agoExcept that in general most mushrooms produce more CO2 than then consume. In fact, they’ve been researched as a possible additional variable to the CO2 budget equation: https://phys.org/news/2016-01-mushrooms-contribute-global.html https://phys.org/news/2016-01-mushrooms-contribute-global.ht.... I doubt that radiation-loving mushrooms are edible, and if they produce CO2 rather than scrub it, I can’t consider them to be part of the life-support system.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y agoThis reminds of Cordwainer Smith's [1] most famous story, Scanners Live in Vain [2]. In the story, a scientist named Adam Stone has found a way to conquer The Great Pain of Space that affects humans who travel into space. To do so he builds a ship whose walls are teeming with life that shields the human inside it: "I have loaded ships with life." "Life?" "Life. I don't know what the Great Pain is, but I did find that in the experiments, when I sent out masses of animals or plants, the life in the center of the mass lived longest. I built ships -small ones, of course- and sent them out with rabbits, with monkeys-" "Those are Beasts?" "Yes. With small Beasts. And the Beasts came back unhurt. They came back because the walls of the ships were filled with life. I tried many kinds, and finally found a sort of life which lives in the waters. Oysters. Oysterbeds. The outermost oysters died in the great pain. The inner ones lived. The passengers were unhurt." "But they were Beasts?" "Not only Beasts. Myself." "You!" "I came through Space alone. Through what you call the Up-and-Out, alone. Awake and sleeping. I am unhurt. If you do not believe me, ask your brother Scanners. Come and see my ship in the morning. I will be glad to see you then, along with your brother Scanners. I am going to demonstrate before the Chiefs of the Instrumentality." https://archive.org/stream/ScannersLiveInVain/SmithCordwainer-ScannersLiveInVain.txt https://archive.org/stream/ScannersLiveInVain/SmithCordwaine... _____________ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners_Live_in_Vain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners_Live_in_Vain
- foobiekr 5y agoLiterally the first thing that came to mind. Smith also had a super interesting background.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y agoYes indeed. I can't find this information online but I remember an anecdote according to which Cordwainer Smith had explained the entire timeline of the Instrumentality of Mankind in terms of current goings-on on the international stage. Of (some of) which he had a certain privileged vantage point, of course. I mainly read his works translated in my native Greek at a time when he was not that well-known among English-speaking SF readers anymore. I consider that lucky, for me, and sad, for everyone else. I think of him as one of the greats, one of the authors of SF whose imagination was not bound by cliché and trope, perhaps thanks to his having a day job, unlike most SF authors. I suspect he never really reached his full potential either, again because that was not his day job. His life experience certainly shaped his writing in any case.