Integrated Plant/Animal Habitat (IPAH)

The purpose of the Integrated Plant/Animal Habitat (IPAH) development is to provide an environmental ecosystem for plants and animals where atmospheric exchanges can be monitored and controlled among separate chambers. The Phase I effort will design, prototype, and test critical elements that will allow monitoring of the gaseous and liquid exchanges between sealed plant chambers and a sealed animal chamber on Space Shuttle or Space Station. By grappling with the biological and engineering problems of combining plants and animals, scientists and engineers will acquire a host of new insights and test novel ideas that will contribute ultimately to a more accurate understanding of plant-human interactions in closed environmental systems. From the point of view of animal-based science, the IPAH promises the capabilities that will enable a variety of otherwise unattainable, yet needed studies related to organism metabolism and other homeostatic processes. The technological advances derived from the IPAH?emphasizing simultaneous monitoring of gases, moving and measuring fluids, regulating light, and controlling temperature and humidity?bring an advance in spaceflight hardware that is particularly well-suited for many kinds of scientific studies that have been previously unavailable to researchers.