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NASA is recycling 98 percent of astronaut pee and sweat on the ISS into drinkable water
(www.engadget.com)
Both cool and disgusting.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Most cities recycle water too. Maybe not 98 percent but a large percentage of water.
Hmm... I had one question from the get go. But it was not answered by the article. Namely what happens the remaining 2%? They say there's a chance to recovery it in the future but not what they do with it currently.
Also, nice stillsuit reference.
I think this has to do with the fact that water soluble wastes are harder to remove from water but easier to concentrate. I'm no chemistry expert but I think that's why
But, given that's the case, what do they do with the wastes? Is it shot out into space or brought back to earth?
Ever experienced a raindrop on the back of your neck? Straight from the ISS.
Most trash is burnt in atmosphere when the one-way supply ships are disposed (de-orbited in a controlled way). Some waste samples are probably brought down for examination.
You already have good answers here, but it's also important to remember that the ISS isn't a perfect seal.
Small amounts of gasses are lost all the time, which is simply the nature of trying to keep small molecules in one place.
I mean, the water we drink now has been an animal or a human's pee.
It doesn’t say how the 2% loss occurs. I’m curious how water actually leaves the system since the ISS is obviously airtight.
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I don’t know man
Saul Goodman would be proud
Collecting sweat? I'm imagining astronauts up there wringing out wash cloths. "Sniff. Sniff. Dammit, Buzz would you stop mopping up your crack. We all don't wanna be drinking Eau de Taint with dinner later." Oh, they use a dehumidifier, yah that makes more sense.
Nice that’s a huge milestone, that way you don’t have to lug thousands of kilos of water to mars bc you waste it all, you can just keep reusing the same amount over and over
So, what are they doing with the other 2%? Using it for propulsion?
Is it something weird? It's something weird, isn't it?
Drinking it straight, duh
D:
Gonna need to open a little wider I hear Chris Hadfield has a massive hog
That scans.
And everyone laughed at Kevin Costner in Waterworld.
I was more thinking Dune, but that also works.
I immediately thought of this. I feel old now.
Imagine you are chilling on the sofa watching netflix with your girl and some random girl knocks at your door and shouts: "WOW! Your filtered piss tastes so GREAT!"
...
Thats an odd way to give someone a blowjob.
They could probably make a tidy profit selling it to internet weirdos instead.
So 2% is lost how often? Every day? Every week? Every month? I don't understand what 98% reclaimed means.
To quote the article that this post links to:
“Let’s say you collect 100 pounds of water on the station. You lose two pounds of that and the other 98 percent just keeps going around and around. Keeping that running is a pretty awesome achievement.”
This means that for any sample of liquid waste, 98% of that quantity will be converted back into water, while the remaining 2% will be discarded.
This does not answer the question. You lose two pounds of it, sure. How do you lose them?
I assume it's the content of the waste that you can't recycle. Like for instance, in urine, you have water of course, but there's also urea and any other waste that the body is removing.
So while you may be able to extract the water from it, the "waste" portion of the bodily waste can't be reused, and must be discarded.
Or if you mean what the process is like for extracting and separating the 98lbs water from the 2lbs of waste, this is the NASA document I could find on the Urine Distillation Assembly that was referenced in this post's article.
To sum it up (to the best of my understanding), the urine enters the UDA, and runs through a vacuum-based distillation chamber and recycle filter, which filters out and collects the brine, before sending off the treated water on it's way for storage and use. Based on the diagram, it looks like there's also a pressure control and coolant system connected to the distillation chamber to pull out any gasses that may be released during distillation.
What about poop?
Recycling poop is only viable if people stop holding it for 3 days or more.
turn it into potatoes?
Here's a general idea of what happens with feces on the ISS:
Waste Collection: The toilet on the ISS uses airflow to direct waste into the right place, given that there's no gravity to help. When astronauts need to poop, they use a specially designed toilet with straps to hold them in place. The toilet includes a smaller hole and fan system that uses suction to pull the waste away from the body.
Waste Storage: Once the waste is collected, it's stored in a separate sealed container. The toilet system compacts and stores solid waste. This waste is exposed to vacuum to kill bacteria and reduce odor.
Disposal: When the container is full, it is removed and stored in a special section of a cargo ship, like a SpaceX Dragon or a Northrop Grumman Cygnus, that is set to leave the ISS and reenter Earth's atmosphere. Upon reentry, the ship and its contents (including the waste) burn up, essentially incinerating the waste.
This answer was given by ChatGPT. I do not know how true it is, but it clearly sounds like it. I hear about freeze-dry process before.
This is accurate except that the Dragon and Cygnus spacecraft do not burn up in the atmosphere. Waste is usually loaded a disposable spacecraft like the Progress which does burn up on reentry. Some is returned to earth occasionally for testing via the Dragon or Cygnus.
Unfortunately Cygnus does not provide return capability, it is fully expendable so anything downmassed is going to experience a really hot welcome.
The Dragon has some expendable storage that can also be used for "garbage day".
Yeah, it would big news if a Dragon burned up.
I assumed they meant it was ejected during reentry but on reflection that would not be worth the risk....though I do like the idea of flaming dragon poop streaming across the sky.
You're not far off, most spacecraft have multiple parts, you can simplify to two:
the orbital module and the return module
The Dragon does indeed have an expendable module they call the "trunk". The capsule comes home but the trunk doesn't.
The NG Cygnus, ESA ATV, and JAXA HTV are all fully expendable. They burn up completely.
The soyuz is the best example, it has three parts and only one comes home. They save a lot of weight by only needing to make one part strong enough to make it back.
Picture from Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soyuz-TMA_descent_module.jpg
Would there be any use to try and slingshot the poop to mars or the moon or sth?
Maybe even have it not exposed to vacuum or have the bacteria in a dormant spore state. Just feels like such a waste to just burn it up,
Contamination is a big problem and everyone in spaceflight does their best to prevent it.
Earth microbes that spread to other bodies might give us false information in our search for extraterrestrial life.
NASA has an office for planetary protection. They don't protect earth, in fact they protect all the other planets from us!
https://sma.nasa.gov/sma-disciplines/planetary-protection
Edit: forgot to mention, even when rovers are sent, they are decontaminated to ensure they are as clean as we can make them.
"drinking your own recycled piss? Sign me up", said no aspiring astro boy
Maybe some big fans of Dune who want to know what stillsuit water tastes like.
The turds are stored in the legs! What a cool suit!
Well, they're in space... so that makes a lot of sense.
The other 2% they save for special occasions