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.
I mean, the water we drink now has been an animal or a human’s pee.
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.
I don’t know man
Saul Goodman would be proud
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.
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
Well, they’re in space… so that makes a lot of sense.
I wonder about the 2 remaining %… is that err… “flavour”?
Here on earth we recycle even more of it. I just had a wonderful lunch with some sparkling
recycled dinosaur pisswater.The other 2% they save for special occasions
Hmm… I had one question from the get go. But it was not answered by the article. Namely what happens the remaining 2%? They say there’s a chance to recovery it in the future but not what they do with it currently.
Also, nice stillsuit reference.
I think this has to do with the fact that water soluble wastes are harder to remove from water but easier to concentrate. I’m no chemistry expert but I think that’s why
But, given that’s the case, what do they do with the wastes? Is it shot out into space or brought back to earth?
Ever experienced a raindrop on the back of your neck? Straight from the ISS.
Most trash is burnt in atmosphere when the one-way supply ships are disposed (de-orbited in a controlled way). Some waste samples are probably brought down for examination.
You already have good answers here, but it’s also important to remember that the ISS isn’t a perfect seal.
Small amounts of gasses are lost all the time, which is simply the nature of trying to keep small molecules in one place.
