So what could sustainability mean on a moonbase for a single person? I see a pressurized glass house, with a retractable cover, a tank with a few gallons of freshwater, some food stores, a packet of kudzu seeds , (an edible legume and is also a fast growing noxious weed) seeds of cereals and edible tubers etc. Also a chamber pot with a lid and a means of collecting the methane from human waste and a simple bunsen burner type of stove for cooking purposes with a store of liquid air for emergencies. The kudzu and other plants would generate oxygen from wastewater and carbon dioxide. The oxygen and cooked kudzu leaves and tubers would provide food and air for respiration. Condensation on the panes of the “greenhouse” could provide clean water. Problems with this system would need to include systems for reclaiming salt, though salt bushes are capable of this, and trace elements such as iodine. ; and a way of minimizing nitrous oxide emissions from the kudzu symbiotic azobacteria perhaps by having a microbial flora adjusted specifically for converting N2O to N2 or NH3, or maybe certain kinds of fungi. Corn is extremely capable of absorbing combined nitrogen. Potatoes are good at sequestering iodine and probably would make a welcome dietary change from the kudzu! “Incompatible elements” (not readily absorbed by common igneous minerals, during cooling of magma) are, however, available locally, on the moon. (phosphorus is an example) so important trace elements such as iodine may also be available.
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