Dune-Inspired Spacesuit Recycles Urine Into Clean Drinking Water (phys.org) 58
Researchers from Cornell University have developed a novel urine collection and filtration system for spacesuits, designed to improve hygiene and comfort for astronauts during long spacewalks. This new system, inspired by the 'stillsuits' from the Dune franchise, recycles urine into potable water using a vacuum-based external catheter and a forward-reverse osmosis unit. It's expected to be tested for use in upcoming NASA moon and Mars missions. Phys.Org reports: [Researchers] have now designed a urine collection device, including an undergarment made of multiple layers of flexible fabric. This connects to a collection cup (with a different shape and size for women and men) of molded silicone, to fit around the genitalia. The inner face of the collection cup is lined with polyester microfiber or a nylon-spandex blend, to draw urine away from the body and towards the inner cup's inner face, from where it is sucked by a vacuum pump. A RFID tag, linked to an absorbent hydrogel, reacts to moisture by activating the pump.
Once collected, the urine is diverted to the urine filtration system, where it gets recycled with an efficiency of 87% through a two-step, integrated forward and reverse osmosis filtration system. This uses a concentration gradient to remove water from urine, plus a pump to separate water from salt. The purified water is then enriched in electrolytes and pumped into the in-suit drink bag, again available for consumption. Collecting and purifying 500ml of urine takes only five minutes.
The system, which integrates control pumps, sensors, and a liquid-crystal display screen, is powered by a 20.5V battery with a capacity of 40 amp-hours. Its total size is 38 by 23 by 23 cm, with a weight of approximately eight kilograms: sufficiently compact and light to be carried on the back of a spacesuit. Now that the prototype is available, the new design can be tested under simulated conditions, and subsequently during real spacewalks. The design has been published in the journal Frontiers in Space Technology.
Once collected, the urine is diverted to the urine filtration system, where it gets recycled with an efficiency of 87% through a two-step, integrated forward and reverse osmosis filtration system. This uses a concentration gradient to remove water from urine, plus a pump to separate water from salt. The purified water is then enriched in electrolytes and pumped into the in-suit drink bag, again available for consumption. Collecting and purifying 500ml of urine takes only five minutes.
The system, which integrates control pumps, sensors, and a liquid-crystal display screen, is powered by a 20.5V battery with a capacity of 40 amp-hours. Its total size is 38 by 23 by 23 cm, with a weight of approximately eight kilograms: sufficiently compact and light to be carried on the back of a spacesuit. Now that the prototype is available, the new design can be tested under simulated conditions, and subsequently during real spacewalks. The design has been published in the journal Frontiers in Space Technology.
Jeff (Score:5, Funny)
Jeff bezos wants wants to implement this new uniform.
How Long Before We Can Turn Our Poop Into Dinner? (Score:1)
Space travel is sounding better by the day!!
Alternate Endings. (Score:1)
Space travel is sounding better by the day!!
Humans are already busy teaching AI the fine art of irony with the history of Skynet practically writing itself. Do the rest of us a favor and don’t give our Soylent Green overlords any more shitty ideas.
Re:How Long Before We Can Turn Our Poop Into Dinne (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to break the news to you, but we've been turning poop into dinner on purpose at least since the first forms of agriculture appeared. Food doesn't appear magically in the supermarket, or on the waiter's tray.
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I guess I have to spell it out for you whipper snappers. I meant via a machine, genius. As the subject of the post was talking about. I already know how to grow food, smart ass.
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Maybe you've read a different summary, the one above only discusses the extraction of fully-grown water which is only slightly contaminated by passing though the person wearing the suit.
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I prefer adolescent water.
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I prefer adolescent water.
Come buy our virgin water, each molecular bond lovingly hand crafted with love, each nucleus assembled from pure energy with care. Don’t get stuck with some imitation recycled star poop billions of years old that’s already been through two mystery dinosaur kidneys and god doesn’t know what else. They are worse than legos that don’t go in dishwashers.
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MMMM, star poop. I'm getting hungry already. Pre-born aborted water is actually the best water. All that's left is imaginary big bang water where it just magically shows up despite the laws of physics.
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I guess I have to spell it out for you whipper snappers. I meant via a machine, genius. As the subject of the post was talking about. I already know how to grow food, smart ass.
To be honest, we thought you were joking about your request for fine fecal dining while on vacation. Guess not.
You should probably take that stick out of your ass before they get started hooking up the prototype. Toothpicks are meant for dessert.
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Of course it was a joke. I'm not eating processed feces unless I'm at McDonald's.
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Humans have been turning poop into dinner long before that, though dogs and rabbits do it better. Agriculture doesn't count because the food comes from photosyntesis, the poop is a mere nutrient supplement.
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North Korea reports a 50% success in turning shit into butter.
Spread is already on par.
Taste still slightly off.
Optional port? (Score:4, Funny)
This (Score:2)
This is going to cause one problem in that collecting astronauts' pee is done for scientific reasons—to help track their health and bone density.
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This is going to cause one problem in that collecting astronauts' pee is done for scientific reasons—to help track their health and bone density.
Scientific reasons? Astronauts are already drinking their pee on the space station and other missions. It not like water tankers are easy to send to space. So it's just the portable version. Take a sample in the suit if needed or maybe the minerals left over can provide enough information.
Whether space suit units constitute an efficient and practical solution is a topic that remains to be seen although, that I could agree.
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Astronauts are already drinking their pee on the space station and other missions.
This is something that most of us do already - certainly urban dwellers. For your education visit your local Sewage treatment [wikipedia.org] works.
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Did you know that by the time the water in the Mississippi River reaches New Orleans it has passed through NINE human bodies on average?
Almost every community up and down the river gets their water supply from it. The intake for a jurisdiction is at the furthest point upriver and the waste/sewage output is placed at the furthest point downriver. That necessarily means that each intake is pretty close to another jurisdictions sewage output.
Water from human waste being treated and recycled into drinking wate
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Right, but doing so with all of it is going to be a problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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This is going to cause one problem in that collecting astronauts' pee is done for scientific reasons—to help track their health and bone density.
And what is stopping them from outfitting the urine collecting hardware with a secondary collection reservoir where vials could be attached and filled to be put into an analysis machine on-board, or that urine analysis capability built into the suit itself?
The former idea shouldn’t be that difficult, and the latter idea should be the goal.
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The former idea shouldn’t be that difficult, and the latter idea should be the goal.
Oh please quit over-engineering! Don't you find we have enough devices already? Do you envision a mobile app for that?
I assume they don't plan to make astronauts live in their suits for months but who knows?
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The former idea shouldn’t be that difficult, and the latter idea should be the goal.
Oh please quit over-engineering! Don't you find we have enough devices already? Do you envision a mobile app for that?
I assume they don't plan to make astronauts live in their suits for months but who knows?
Monitoring a humans health on Earth, is rather important for that individuals strategic longevity.
Monitoring the health of the human responsible for missions controlling millions of dollars worth of hardware floating in orbit trying not to cause THE Kessler Event to fuck an entire planet up, is just a tad more critical.
Try not to be so ignorant next time. I fucking hate app culture.
Memories (Score:1)
My Brita waterfilter does that too at $20 per unit (Score:2)
Amazing how low cost space adventures could be!
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Watch out with those, they often need to be extraordinarily well maintained and often make matters worse when not in optimal operating conditions. They are basically a bacteria, fungus etc. incubator.
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Watch out with those, they often need to be extraordinarily well maintained and often make matters worse when not in optimal operating conditions. They are basically a bacteria, fungus etc. incubator.
And yet probably still safer than waiting for the city water suppliers to exceed some arbitrary limit on detected toxins, and (maybe) put out the oh-shit-better-boil-your-water notice in time. Rather pathetic Brita is succeeding because others are failing.
Still contains dinosaur piss (Score:2)
Just remember, all water on this planet, at some point in time, was run through a dinosaur or its relatives or one of its neighbors. According to homepathy, the more you dilute something the stronger it gets. Thus, astronauts are drinking a more concentrated version of dinosaur piss than if they drank from the hose.
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According to homepathy, the more you dilute something the stronger it gets.
That is wrong. There is no such homeophatic principle or idea.
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There are no ideas or principles in homeopathy, yes.
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There is actually a very strong scientific idea behind it.
But you do not know it: as your schools in your country do not teach it. Because most homeopathic remedies are as cheep as common kitchen salt. So your medial industrial complex does no want you to know it.
Check: https://nida.nih.gov/publicati... [nih.gov]
Withdrawal therapies work by giving you a drug causing similar effects but having less bad side effects.
Then you reduce the level of drugs. You continue with reducing the level of the drug and at some point t
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There is actually a very strong scientific idea behind it.
How can you tell? You would not know science if it hit you in the face.
Withdrawal therapies work... Exact the same thing as Homeopathy
LOL, old fart, how did you survive your bleach injection?
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I never had a bleach injection, stupid idiot.
The only two homeopathic medicals I use are, 25% solution and 98% solution.
Nothing diluted.
Dumbfuck.
Read a wikipedia site or don't. Up to you.
I hope you are not stupid enough to fool around with "bleach".
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Read a wikipedia site
Obviously, you're from the wikipedia-educated generation. Which explains why you're so stupid.
The only two homeopathic medicals I use are, 25% solution and 98% solution.
98%? I pity your liver.
I myself use only grain alcohol and rain water, just so I keep the Communist plot in check ;)
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There are no ideas or principles in homeopathy, yes.
This is extremely important. If you only knew how many incredibly dilute substances were on, around, and in you at any moment, you would die of a massive overdose.
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You should not have said this, now I won't be able to sleep, ever.
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According to homepathy, the more you dilute something the stronger it gets.
That is wrong. There is no such homeophatic principle or idea.
Would you like [newhope.com] to try again [carepatron.com]?
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No, I so not want to try again. Because it is wrong.
No idea about you stupid Americans.
Get an education perhaps and learn how it is "supposed" to work. Does not matter if it works or not. It is not "supposed" to be "stronger" when it is more diluted. Read Wikipedia perhaps?
Idiot?
Stillsuits (Score:2)
What was so great about stillsuits was that they didn't need power, they were powered by walking and maybe direct solar thermal heat. And if you look at the weather reports recently, we could use that technology here, now...
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Employers will jump on this tech!
It'll be part of the corporate dress code, it eliminates all those pesky bathroom breaks. I can see this being adopted wholeheartedly by the Chinese; They might have to add additional suicide nets but productivity is the name of the game!
Bear Grylls wants one (Score:2)
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Bear Grylls already wants to order one such suit.
I am sure he can make a solar still. That is boy scout level tech. You can get pre-made ones from boat supply stores.
Not doing so is just clickbait.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
At what point are we going to conduct spacewalks long enough that carrying fresh water isn't a much better idea? The system weighs 8kg, the same as 8L (2.1 gallons) of water. Strenuous exercise can cause you to lose about 1 L per hour, and spacewalks are generally not active enough to reach that threshold. Do we need a system capable of 100% water replacement for 8 hour strenuously active spacewalks, or 16 hour moderately active spacewalk ? And this is total water replacement, you can just not drink water for hours with no ill effects. The oxygen will run out well before the water is an issue.
Until they make an oxygen recycling system to allow much longer spacewalks, this isn't better than just carrying sufficient water. We've been able to recycle urine into water for years, this system is not light enough over current water processing technology (i.e. a big container of water), so it's just a meaningless milestone.
Downside (Score:2)
Downside: you need to insert a catheter.
Re: Downside (Score:2)
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No fun.