BiosphereOS: A Closed-Loop Habitat Metabolism Stack for Off-World Civilization

Abstract

A galactic civilization cannot be provisioned by cargo. It must metabolize. BiosphereOS is a proposed operating system for closed-loop habitat metabolism: a control, modeling, evidence, and governance layer that treats air, water, food, waste, microbes, minerals, power, heat, and crew physiology as one auditable metabolic process. The paper does not replace existing environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS); it reframes them as devices beneath a metabolic kernel. The grounded engineering claim is that long-duration off-world habitation requires explicit mass-balance ledgers, bioreactor state estimation, microbial commons governance, failure choreography, and signed evidence pipelines. The speculative claim is bolder: a mature habitat becomes a small synthetic Gaia, an autopoietic covenant between human intention, microbial intelligence, mineral memory, and energy. We formalize habitat closure, entropy debt, metabolic resilience, and a phased evidence program from bench loops to crewed chamber tests and lunar settlements. The non-negotiable spine is fission/fusion baseload power, cryogenic and high-temperature-superconductor power routing, quantum gravimetry for resource discovery, and directed-energy logistics for interplanetary supply gradients.