Suggestions for recycling on our barren homestead?

Maybe you’ve heard of the homestead challenge for a piece of property called “Moonbase.” Residents fear the worst:

Moonbase … dusty and cramped with furniture fashioned from redundant spacecraft and a diet of salad and mealworms grown in human waste, washed down with instant coffee that was yesterday's urine.

Any suggestions to help this well-funded intentional community improve quality of life on their homestead?

Funny. The problems I see are space, and light. Fortunately LED lights are lightweight, bright, and cheap.
Making space to grow any significant amount of food will be the problem. Inflated tent greenhouses?

The LED lights are certainly doable; great idea Thom!
Maybe chickens (delivered as fertilized eggs) could also live in the [recycled plastic and aluminum?] greenhouse tents that Thom suggests. They could eat the mealworms and, eventually, the residents could supplement mealworms with eggs, chicken, and soft feathers, not to mention fertilizers for heating the tents and nourishing the gardens.
Many people have used empty boots for a homey garden touch, solving another recycling problem that the article mentions.
Other ideas?

where do I sign up?

Wow, I got a taste of how spoiled I am when my truck broke down on Wednesday.   The 1st thing I realized I was short on:  clean water.  

If meal-worms are plentiful, why not feed them to chickens, and then you have chicken and eggs.

I'm a little grossed out by most wormy things, but termites and ants are surprisingly good.   Both live well on scraps of things we wouldn't care to eat.   I actually enjoyed my termite fried rice ... didn't even notice they were in there.

James asks,

Where do I sign up?

Here's the the link.
Good luck James!

Amy Gardener wrote:
Maybe chickens (delivered as fertilized eggs) could also live in the [recycled plastic and aluminum?] greenhouse tents that Thom suggests. They could eat the mealworms and, eventually, the residents could supplement mealworms with eggs, chicken, and soft feathers, not to mention fertilizers for heating the tents and nourishing the gardens.

I think I've read/heard somewhere (might have been in one of Common Sense Skeptic's "Debunking Starship" videos or in the comment section to the same, or in something similar) that chickens have issues with low gravity. Seems flying is actually tricky for them in weightless conditions, who'd have guessed... But maybe lunar gravity is strong enough that it's not a problem?

Eino writes,

...chickens have issues with low gravity. Seems flying is actually tricky for them in weightless conditions, who'd have guessed... But maybe lunar gravity is strong enough that it's not a problem?

Excellent research question here. There could be a chicken breed that is better suited to weightless conditions. Or maybe quail or some other bird would be more appropriate. Thankfully, you could get reimbursed up to $3 million for exploring this topic in depth.

I agree about chickens.

I'd add all sorts of earthworms/ composting worms. And mushrooms. All of them are great recyclers and miners. If mycelium will grow in the dust/ regolith, it might make a building material.

T writes,

And mushrooms. All of them are great recyclers and miners. If mycelium will grow in the dust/ regolith, it might make a building material.

Mycelium would be amazing; no need for lights!
In addition to the dust/ regolith, could the mycelium also be selected for the ability to grow on the waste substrates identified - plastic food pouches, landing module metals, boots... - to form insulated, naturally bonding building material for the homestead? What an excellent research project idea, T.

I forgot to mention lights. Neither the worms nor the mushrooms need much, if any.

There's already been success using fungus either to segregate unwanted minerals or to break them down. (I don't remember enough detail.)  It would be great to either make unwanted plastic into non-plastic, or lock up microplastic into buildings and tunnels and stuff.

Also there's been success feeding mealworms on styrofoam. Probably not much up there, but maybe they can eat other [polystyrene?]. I never could find out if they digest it to non plastic or just smaller pieces of plastic. If it's still plastic, maybe give it to the mycelium.

I think if they're smart about what plastics they take up there, most can be shredded, melted, extruded into filament and then 3d printed into new stuff. That should reduce waste and reduce what has to be sent up.

Sounds like the recycled waste plastic filament fed into a 3D printer could conceivably be used to make molds where homesteaders could grow mycelium forms that could be used to build interlocking blocks, for example, to make a hatchery for the farm. Very cool T!

A thing I thought of is carbon. To keep plants growing in a moon base, you'd need carbon. To build any kind of living soil, you'd need a whole bunch more. On Earth we have an (all too) abundant supply in the shape of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. No such thing exists on the moon. It seems (from here) that both carbon and nitrogen only exist in trace quantities on the moon. Of course, the people would breathe out CO2 as long as they had food, but soil building at least would be a major carbon sink. So a carbon source is needed.

Oxygen exists abundantly on the moon, bound up in various minerals. If you could free up some of this oxygen (which is probably possible with an abundant supply of energy) you could set up a high-temperature incinerator operating on pure oxygen, and burn any scraps of plastic-like materials that are beyond other reuse or recycling. This would give a carbon dioxide source for growing things. Even if building soil is not a priority, I guess you could feed the CO2 to algae, and then use them as either food or raw material for making things like bioplastics...

What kind of idea would a moonbase have to recycle?

According to the article, items that need recycling so far are:

96 bags of urine, faeces and vomit, as well as boots and life support systems. The astronauts discarded three lunar rovers, assorted experiments and cameras, six flags, a family photo, a feather and two golf balls

This intentional community expects many new residents in the future who will need to bring food and daily living items. The goal is to help these new comers pack better so that whatever they bring to the community can be reused, repurposed, recycled, under difficult conditions such as: no topsoil, no water, no carbon, no gravity.

I've been following the starlink project a tiny bit since I saw 22 of their satellites going across the sky in a neat row one night.  I've read that they lose a significant # of satellites due to things like atmospheric drag.   We've all also heard how old space stations and many other satellites regularly go dead and fall back into earth's atmosphere.  So, where I'm going with this ...it takes a lot less energy to move something from earth orbit to the moon than it does to launch it from earth.   So, space debris recycling should def be an area of research.

Also, a valid research is sourcing natural materials from space.   Energetically, one can extract energy by taking mass from a higher orbit (like say, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter) and dropping it down to earth/moon level orbit.  ...going a little sci-fi here: a worm hole scale bungee cord sure would be handy for that ...slow asteroids down by picking up stuff off mother earth.   I'm trying to think of a way to slow something in orbit by extracting momentum energy.  Atmospheric drag does that, but what would work in deep space? ...i'm not coming up with anything ...ideas anyone?

If you did happen to find a large chunk of ice in the asteroid belt, a solar powered vaporizer might work to create a (controlled and directed jet of steam) that slowly decelerates the chunk.   A more direct energy transfer of momentum to heat would be insanely handy for that ...just can't think of anything on that.

An earth orbiting recycling plant would be extremely handy.  It could process all the weird metals like beryllium and then a moon bound ship can eject things, not needed on the moon, retrograde ...using the momentum exchange to boost the moon ship to higher orbit.   ...added benefit ...creepy exotic space materials need not be burning up in our atmosphere and dusting everyone.

James Bradford wrote:I'm trying to think of a way to slow something in orbit by extracting momentum energy.  Atmospheric drag does that, but what would work in deep space? ...i'm not coming up with anything ...ideas anyone?

Solar sails?

T Melville wrote:

Solar sails?

maybe even a reflective sail that concentrated sunlight onto the ice chunk to vaporize ice and create a jet.