But first the University of Alabama in Huntsville research associate must await the results of initial testing being conducted now on a Space Shuttle Endeavour payload.
The initial experiment -- which Nerren spent the last six years designing and building -- should determine how well tiny, single-celled plants called diatoms convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. Nerren's goal is to use the diatoms as a foundation for a self-sustained life-support system in space or submarine habitats.
"Plants take in carbon dioxide that animals exhale and convert it to oxygen for us to breathe," the 1983 Hazel Green High School graduate said. "In space, they would take up the CO2 that the astronauts give out and give it back as oxygen for the astronauts to breathe."
Plants have long been a consideration for cleaning air and supplying food on space missions. But Nerren's concept, he believes, takes a more practical approach than existing self-sustained life-support experiments.
While existing exnclosed environments use leafy plants to support life, Nerren is proposing the use of microscopic algae.
With microalgae, Nerren said a population of millions could fit in a test tube in the palm of a human hand. And microalgae live in water.
"Instead of having to deal with big, leafy plants in soil, I'm saying, `Is it feasable to do the same thing with a much smaller module?' "
Nerren initially planned to conduct his diatom experiment as a senior thesis in college. At UAH, he heard that the university's chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) would develop a payload canister for a future shuttle flight.
Nerren joined SEDS, and the group selected his diatom experiment to be one of the four on its Get-Away-Special (GAS-CAN) 503.
A Marshall Space Flight Center grant to the Biospheric Laboratory for Student Research at the Huntsville-Madison County Botanical Garden paid for the $20,000 hardware used in the experiment.
The experiment begins with low weight and shock-resistand dehydrated diatoms placed in suspended animation. The diatoms are loaded into chambers with sensors to monitor their health and status during growth. Once the shuttle is in space, nutrient fluids will be pumped into the chambers, and the diatoms will rehydrate and grow for 10 days.
Nerren will study the diatoms when the shuttle returns to see how well they've survived in antigravity.
"At the end of the mission, a chemical fixative will put them back in a state of suspended animation," said Nerren. "Then I can look under the microscope and compare them to those on the ground and see if there's any difference."
