Spring Break
Water resources in space will eliminate the sponge bath
Scott Conover
Issue date: 2/16/09 Section: Forum
Water is a prime necessity for any human being. While there is an imbalance in the supply of clean water on Earth, in space there is no ready supply of clean water that does not either require recycling or extraction.
Yet it is possible to extract water in the environment of space from a variety of different sources. It is a matter of finding the potential water supply and extracting the material for purification and consumption. In addition to this, it is possible to recycle the water gleaned, either from supplies on Earth or from space. NASA and their affiliates currently recycle the vast majority of the water supply aboard the International Space Station.
Perhaps with both methods - extracting the water from space and recycling the used supply - living in space may not allow just sponge baths but provide room for luxury as well.
NASA states that while the Russians were the first to practice effective water recycling techniques, NASA planned to improve the process further:
"'The Russians are ahead of us,' says Robyn Carrasquillo, engineering manager for ECLSS. 'The original Salyut and Mir spacecraft were able to condense humidity right out of the air and use electrolysis - an electric current run through the water - to produce oxygen for breathing.' NASA's new regenerative ECLSS, to be launched to ISS in 2008, goes further: 'it can recover urine in addition to humidity.'"
Although that article was from 2006, NASA, as of Feb. 28, 2008, updated their water recycling webpage with the following:
"Currently, on-orbit water recovery hardware is limited to collection of humidity condensate by Russian and U.S. systems and recovery of humidity condensate by Russian equipment. Stabilized urine is stored and returned to Earth for disposal. Regenerative ECLSS hardware that will be deployed on ISS will increase the capability to recover wastewater by processing pretreated urine in a Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD) subsystem. Humidity condensate and urine distillate will be treated through a combination of adsorption/ion exchange processes and thermal catalysis, collectively known as the Water Processing Assembly (WPA). When these subsystems are deployed on ISS, approximately 93 percent of wastewater will be recovered to potable standards. The remaining wastewater will be disposed of as a concentrated brine solution."
Yet it is possible to extract water in the environment of space from a variety of different sources. It is a matter of finding the potential water supply and extracting the material for purification and consumption. In addition to this, it is possible to recycle the water gleaned, either from supplies on Earth or from space. NASA and their affiliates currently recycle the vast majority of the water supply aboard the International Space Station.
Perhaps with both methods - extracting the water from space and recycling the used supply - living in space may not allow just sponge baths but provide room for luxury as well.
NASA states that while the Russians were the first to practice effective water recycling techniques, NASA planned to improve the process further:
"'The Russians are ahead of us,' says Robyn Carrasquillo, engineering manager for ECLSS. 'The original Salyut and Mir spacecraft were able to condense humidity right out of the air and use electrolysis - an electric current run through the water - to produce oxygen for breathing.' NASA's new regenerative ECLSS, to be launched to ISS in 2008, goes further: 'it can recover urine in addition to humidity.'"
Although that article was from 2006, NASA, as of Feb. 28, 2008, updated their water recycling webpage with the following:
"Currently, on-orbit water recovery hardware is limited to collection of humidity condensate by Russian and U.S. systems and recovery of humidity condensate by Russian equipment. Stabilized urine is stored and returned to Earth for disposal. Regenerative ECLSS hardware that will be deployed on ISS will increase the capability to recover wastewater by processing pretreated urine in a Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD) subsystem. Humidity condensate and urine distillate will be treated through a combination of adsorption/ion exchange processes and thermal catalysis, collectively known as the Water Processing Assembly (WPA). When these subsystems are deployed on ISS, approximately 93 percent of wastewater will be recovered to potable standards. The remaining wastewater will be disposed of as a concentrated brine solution."
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