In pictures: All you need to know about NASA's Lunar Loo Challenge
NASA is calling on the
global community for toilet designs that will work both in microgravity
and lunar gravity. For this, the space agency has tied up with HeroX to launch
a Lunar Loo Challenge on Thursday. Interbartolo is the project manager for the
Challenge.
Space toilet technology has come some way from
the grim Apollo years, when bags had to be taped to the astronaut’s buttocks in
a setup that was not always as secure as might have been hoped. One mission
transcript records an exchange between crew members: “Where did that come
from?… There’s a turd floating through the air.” The international space
station (ISS) features a large, industrial-looking Russian-made toilet that
uses suction technology to overcome the challenge of pooing and peeing in microgravity.
NASA, however, is seeking something that would function equally well on the
lunar surface, where gravity is about a sixth of that on Earth.
NASA is already working on approaches to miniaturize and
streamline the existing toilets, designed for microgravity only. With
this challenge, the agency hopes to attract radically new and different
approaches to the problem of human waste capture and containment. NASA is looking for a next-generation device that is smaller, more
efficient. These designs may be adapted for use in the Artemis lunar landers,
mission to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024.
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