ISS Gets New Recycling Gear, Ready For Larger Crew

TnGoastiiaiu submitted a space.com story that expands on coverage we've had earlier about improvements being made to the ISS to increase crew capacity. He writes "ISS gets new recycling gear that transforms human waste to drinking water. Some of the water will be used to get Oxygene, too. This way it will soon be possible to host more crew members. " Also, someone needs to smack the webmaster over there for putting a background texture behind the text. It's pretty unreadable along the left hand side of the screen.

Comments

Waste hydrogen?

[clang_jangle]

Also, someone needs to smack the webmaster over there for putting a background texture behind the text. It's pretty unreadable along the left hand side of the screen.

Looks just fine in Safari and Firefox, both on OS X... Sounds like someone needs to check their settings/browser choice before setting off to "smack" anyone. :)
As for trasforming human waste (just urine, according TFA) into drinking water, well, I'm just mighty glad I didn't choose to become an astronaut. I did wonder about this part, though:

It can also be used to feed the station's U.S.-built oxygen generator, which uses electrolysis to split liquid water into breathable oxygen and waste hydrogen.

Waste hydrogen? I would have expected them to have some use for that.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[dontPanik]

The page looks fine on IE too.

...Not that I use Internet Explorer or anything!

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[mrvan]

Waste hydrogen? I would have expected them to have some use for that.

The obvious thing to do with hydrogen is to use it as fuel. But think about it: burning it would undo the electrolysis by consuming all the oxygen generated, so unless they are looking for a way to convert electricity into a chemical fuel, it isn't very useful...

if oxygen is scarcer than energy, burning stuff isn't a sensible thing to do

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[LunaticTippy]

You could still use it as fuel. Pressurize it using solar power and use it as an unburned positioning jet. If you're throwing it away anyway, you could get some use from it.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[JesseMcDonald]

The hydrogen could be used as "fuel" (reaction mass) in an ion- or plasma-style engine. No oxygen required, just lots of electricity.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[ivan256]

Generally, that hydrogen will require oxygen(e) to be useful, and they're splitting the oxygen off for other uses already.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[hardburn]

I think it's enormously ironic that CmdrTaco can criticize anyone for website design.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[sunking2]

Booked for ones of the last shuttle launches is the Sabatier unit. This takes CO2 from the scrubbers and H from the OGA and produces H2O and methane. The H2O is then fed back into the OGA, methane is dumped. Though not needed for the ISS to function, it's a testbed for a WPA -> OGA -> SAB process which through normal water intake by the astros would allow for >=80% of the oxygen needed for a Mars trip. Or so we hope. Until then the H is useless as just about anything you'd want it for requires O2 and it's rather dangerous to keep around. The OGA has been up there for a year or so. Every few months when a progress brings some bags of water we go through a week of activations. This was actually the big reason that they had to fix the solar arrays last year. The OGA needs a decent amount of power and typically runs only during day time. About 60 out of every 90 minutes.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[gnick]

Generally, that hydrogen will require oxygen(e) to be useful, and they're splitting the oxygen off for other uses already.

Exactly - To use hydrogen, you typically either compress it or burn it. Compressing it is a lot of trouble and burning it is the exact opposite of extracting breathable oxygene* (a major goal).

* Oxygene - Just like regular oxygen, but now with more electrolytes!

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[gnick]

I believe that Still Suits were the original goal. Unfortunately, NASA ran into some copyright / prior art issues with Frank Herbert's estate and they had to resort to drinking reprocessed pee.

Also, there are already a few posts (including FP) that include some "Eww, yuck" content. Pretty much all of us are drinking reprocessed pee to some degree. NASA's just getting efficient about it. Accept it - It's OK. Everything used to be something else. Even you.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[Jeff1946]

Best use is react with CO2 to form methane and water. Methane can be expelled thru resitojets (believe that is the right name) (electrically heated nozzles) to generate minor trust.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[megaditto]

It depends how they treat it. For instance, most filters and some ion exchange membranes out there cannot remove small virus particles from solutions.

I for one wouldn't enjoy the thought of drinking a glass of someone's HIV, herpes, or cancer viruses, even though they would probably be harmless at that point.

I am not even going to mention all the homeopathy, alternative medicine, and other considerations that might come into play if they turn out to be true.

Re:Waste hydrogen?

[gnick]

Unfortunately, NASA ran into some copyright / prior art issues with Frank Herbert's estate and they had to resort to drinking reprocessed pee.

Wouldn't that last run afoul of a certain Kevin Costner property as well?

I wish you hadn't brought that up - It wouldn't have been an issue.

There are a lot of people who have read Dune (or at least watched the mini-series or had the movie seared into their brains). But not even Costner sat through Waterworld - Since even the stage-hands and producers had blocked that movie out of their memories, nobody would have ever sued over the reprocessed pee scene.

Thanks a lot for cluing them in...

The real question is...

[ivan256]

Are they bringing any freeze-dried potatoe?

Re:The real question is...

[Hoi Polloi]

I don't know about that, but they will get hydrogene as a byproduct.

Yummie!

[SanderDJ]

* Transform human waste to drinking water
* ???
* Profit!

Re:Yummie!

[yuriyg]

* Transform human waste to drinking water
* Collect spice
* Profit!

Water into code?

[Thelasko]

Some of the water will be used to get Oxygene

Re:Water into code?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Why not? Sometimes I turn beer into code.

Re:Water into code?

[LordEd]

Friends don't let friends code drunk.

Re:Water into code?

[sconeu]

Or do mathematics.

Remember, math and alcohol don't mix. Please don't drink and derive.

Re:Water into code?

[csnydermvpsoft]

What if they have to maintain someone else's Perl?

Friends don't let friends code Perl, either.

Oxygene

[hcdejong]

Jean-Michel Jarre songs are made of water? Who knew?

Re:Oxygene

[ettlz]

It comes in a Jarre, with a slight whiff of cheese.

I always thought...

[Thelasko]

the number of crew members aboard the ISS was limited by the size of the escape vehicle.

Re:I always thought...

[Ngarrang]

the number of crew members aboard the ISS was limited by the size of the escape vehicle.

As did I. To wit, I figured they could just attached a second escape vehicle? But, aside from having to escape, the current system is limited in how much waste it can process, so limiting the number of active crew.

Re:I always thought...

[RetiredMidn]

IIRC, they now have enough docking ports to park a second Soyuz.

Re:I always thought...

[richdun]

Yes, a second Soyuz is the key for escape (that's why capacity will be 6, instead of the original 7 I think that could fit in the X-38). But they've also been limited by sleeping arrangements, which the new Node 3 will provide, along with having all the labs up and running. While the station might have supported 6 crew members on just the Russian and US sections, things would have been very cramped without the EU and Japanese labs around to help pay for things... er... I mean... give them all things to do.

Re:Oxygene

[johannesg]

What's Oxygene?

It is one of the two types of Atomes that make up Watere. The other is Hydrogene.

If you have any other questions about Chemistrye, I'll be happy to answer them for you!

Webmaster?

[Swizec]

Also, someone needs to smack the webmaster over there for putting a background texture behind the text. It's pretty unreadable along the left hand side of the screen.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't webmasters die along with the 90's?

Re:Yuk!

[maxume]

All the water on Earth is essentially recycled urine at this point.

Re:Oxygene

[Yvan256]

No, you're thinking about iXygen.

Re:Yuk!

[Smivs]

All the water on Earth is essentially recycled urine at this point.

Oh shit!

Re:Yuk!

[Orange Crush]

Oh shit!

That too.

Re:Oxygene?

[MyLongNickName]

Thanks for being the first person to notice this and post about it.