Speaker
Description
This contribution focuses on the study of scientific literature in the field of Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSSs), which is at the forefront of current space science. Since the 1960s – and more intensely since the 1980s – this multidisciplinary field has brought together scholars from various disciplines and different countries to investigate how to sustain human life over long periods in extreme environments, such as those of outer space. BLSSs can provide space crews travelling to or settling on the Moon or Mars with water, oxygen and food, and are also designed to recycle waste and regenerate air. The complexity of these tasks implies that different sciences must cooperate to develop BLSSs as hybrid systems apt to fulfil vital physicochemical processes. In fact, BLSSs open up new ecological perspectives thanks to the encounter between engineering, biochemistry, biology, chemical engineering, ecology, cybernetics, physiology, medicine, and agricultural science. As such, multidisciplinary efforts in BLSS research deserve bibliometric network studies that help to unveil the patterns of collaboration among the relevant scholars and institutions. It is also important to understand how innovations in BLSS research can foster future expectations towards achievements in self-sustaining closed ecological systems and the related advancements in the production of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, BLSS research is characterized by a dual perspective, seeking to understand how to live in both outer space and extreme conditions on Earth and thus aiming to improve our knowledge of earthly ecosystems. The current proposal is based on co-authorship and co-occurrence analysis of the relevant literature over a temporal dimension spanning more than forty years, showing how the field has grown and the extent to which differentiation and association among diverse topics, disciplines and scholars characterise this multifaceted scientific domain.
Keywords/Topics
Bioregenerative Life Support Systems, Multidisciplinary fields, Scientific collaboration, Co-authorship, Co-occurrence
