In 2024, we celebrated the 55th anniversary of the first humans to land on the Moon. However, the record for the longest a person has continuously lived in space is 438 days set in 1995 by a Russian cosmonaut on the Soviet MIR space station nearly 20 years ago. Currently, NASA has no plans to extend this record. The International Space Station, continuously occupied since 2000 by a rotating short-term crew is near the end of its habitable life with no comparable space station planned.

Living in space continues to be harmful due to levels of gravity and radiation significantly different from Earth. Also, each human continuously requires extensive supplies from Earth that are converted into waste for disposal. In order for humans to eventually meet the objective of Presidential Space Policy Directive 1 of 12/11/2017 to develop a sustainable program to “enable human expansion across the solar system,” Earth-like environments with respect to gravity and radiation, among other things including in-situ resource utilization and the recycling of all waste capabilities, need to be created beyond Earth.

The SELBE Research Institute collaborating as needed with other organizations will develop technologies and systems  advised by the both technical experts and the general public to be validated scientifically and experimentally that assist in laying the foundation for eventually enabling populations of humans, animals, and plants to live their entire lives in Earth orbit, on the Moon, within asteroids, the Mars moons, on Mars, and beyond.