The Needs
“Don’t give people what they want, give them what they need.”
- Joss Whedon
The needs were outlined with regards to the crew being the most important stakeholder in relation to the system. Since the crew will be the immediate benefactor to the system's function, we saw it fit to ensure that the crews health and well-being were upheld during the systems operation.
A few of the key needs addressed by the system were that it would be able to provide all the necessary nutrients to the crew in order to maintain a healthy, active diet. It would need to do this in a fashion that is sustainable in a closed-loop environment, be easily maintained and operated, and be resilient in light of potential dangers such as power outages.
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The needs were prioritized by considering how the failure to meet them would affect the success of the mission. A need of rank 5 indicates that the failure to meet the need would result in the loss of the crew. A rank of 4 would cause a failure of the overall mission or serious harm to the crew. A rank of 1 would only be a minor nuisance. A rank of 2 would cause minor problems in fulfilling the mission. A rank of 3 serves as a midline in the ranking system. The ranks can be seen in the requirements section.
A more comprehensive assemblage of the needs for this project can be found in the spreadsheet below.