This week, NASA revealed that the International Space Station’s Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) is recycling 98 percent of all water astronauts bring aboard the station…
Both cool and disgusting.
Most cities recycle water too. Maybe not 98 percent but a large percentage of water.
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.
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
I mean, the water we drink now has been an animal or a human’s pee.
They could probably make a tidy profit selling it to internet weirdos instead.
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.
Saul Goodman would be proud
The other 2% they save for special occasions
Well, they’re in space… so that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, but we’re all technically in space. So why is it weird when I drink my own piss??
We are technically in space I suppose, but the distinction is that we are close to a planet with a huge amount of fresh water nearby. If you live in a city, you can get copious water freely from a faucet almost free or charge, so yes.
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!
It doesn’t say how the 2% loss occurs. I’m curious how water actually leaves the system since the ISS is obviously airtight.
Here on earth we recycle even more of it. I just had a wonderful lunch with some sparkling
recycled dinosaur pisswater.I’ve always wondered how long a tank of water of some size would last. Everyone always handwaved away all the details of energy, food, water, etc in sci fi shows, but I’ve always been interested in those aspects.
The Martian was satisfying for this reason, but I want MORE.
Watched the Expanse?
Yeah, really loved it, thought about mentioning it but left it out.
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.
