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BACKGROUND: Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) provide self‐sufficient food ingredients to support long‐term manned missions. It is crucial to transform raw food ingredients that are regenerated in situ in BLSS into nutritional and delectable meals for spacecraft crews. It is in our interest to develop a dietary menu with Chinese characteristics that comprises biomass produced in situ with BLSS regenerated ingredients. RESULTS: Here we report an optimized Chinese 4‐day diet meal plan for 'Lunar Palace 1' that is nutritionally balanced and highly acceptable. The 2900 cal diet menu not only meets the requirements of a balanced diet for crews but also exceeds the recommended levels for most nutrients. Specifically, daily fresh food consumption in our meal plan is 1267 g day−1, of which 78% is provided by crops and insects regenerated in situ in the BLSS. The meal plan is highly favored by Chinese crews, with acceptability as high as 7.8–8.2 on a 9‐point hedonic scale. We further confirmed that our meal plan satisfies crews' basic nutritional needs through a 105‐day closed habitation experiment. CONCLUSION: In brief, the findings provide new insights for dietary meal plan design in future long‐term manned missions. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Spatial inequality refers to unequal access to local public services between high- and low-income households in relation to their residential locations. We examine two hypotheses regarding the role of income sorting and land-use conditions in shaping spatial inequality in Chinese cities, where residents have little direct influence on local public service provision. First, in the presence of resource indivisibility, travel cost, and location-based rationing, scarcity of public-service resources in a city makes access to public services more uneven across neighborhoods, thus exacerbating income sorting and spatial inequality in the city. Second, the exacerbating effect of resource scarcity is mitigated by land-use conditions that limit income sorting. Estimates of willingness to pay by households of different income levels for public-service resources across cities corroborate both the exacerbating effect of resource scarcity and the mitigating effect of inclusive land-use conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elevated atmospheric CO 2 has been shown to rapidly alter plant physiology and ecosystem productivity, but contemporary ecological responses to increased CO 2 have yet to be studied in a controlled closed ecosystem with humans. To test this concept, at an integrated ground-based Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS) named Lunar Palace-1, we tested elevated CO 2 effects on gas exchange characteristics in an experiment involving humans. During the whole experimental process, researchers monitored CO 2 and O 2 concentrations in different plant growth and human occupied cabins on a real time basis. By turning off lighting and air ventilation system, elevated CO 2 effects were measured in plant chamber and overall facility during a 1 h period. The results indicated that elevated CO 2 had variable effects on plant photosynthetic and respiration rates. Photosynthesis in most plants is typically not saturated with respect to carbon dioxide at 400 ppm. Elevated CO 2 has inhibitory effects on plant respiration. Photosynthesis is strengthened and respiration is reduced in a closed artificial ecosystem were demonstrated under high levels of CO 2 . Our findings in this closed ecosystem may serve as key baseline design data for larger, long-term and higher degree of closure BLSS integration experiment planned for the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the dynamics of human gut microbiota in space is crucial in maintaining astronaut health. Long-duration and deep-space manned exploration will require the in situ regeneration of resources, which would be achieved by an artificial ecosystem, such as a bioregenerative life-support system (BLSS). Potential response of human gut microbiota to particular lifestyle and dietary structure experienced in a BLSS remains unclear. Here, we report how a BLSS impacts the gut microbiota during a 105-day study that took place in the Chinese Lunar Palace 1 (LP1). The three crewmembers were provided with high-plant and high-fibre diet, and they followed a fixed schedule including extensive labour in the plant cabin. The gut microbiota composition of the three crewmembers showed convergence and similar dynamic change. Increased diversity and abundance of Lachnospira, Faecalibacterium and Blautia indicated that the LP1 dietary structure and the lifestyle may be beneficial for the maintenance of healthy gut microbiome. A stronger impact was found from the gut microbiome to the environment compared with the opposite direction, suggesting the necessity of environmental pathogen control in BLSS., (© 2018 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)