TIL: NASA Just Launched the Space Poop Challenge
You heard that right folks! NASA (the US space agency) is offering up to three $30,000 prizes for the best invented method of handling our excrement with the deadline being December 20, 2016.
Up to now their method has been a fancy diaper that at best works for one day. Right now, just getting an astronaut to the International Space Station can take up to two days. When thinking about flights to an asteroid or Mars, which can take a minimum of 6 days, the space diaper just isn't a feasible solution.
The challenge specifically is looking designs that are a hands free, waste handling system that can last up to six days that have to be able to function in a weightless environment. We wouldn't want our astronauts having poop or pee floating around in their space suits or getting diaper rash, while having to deal with the unforgiving environments of outer space.
So get your thinking caps on and lets get this one figured out! There's no way we can expect to reach our current goal of visiting Mars by the 2030's if we can't even let our astronauts go to the bathroom!
Image Sources:
Space Walk
Space Poop Challenge Video
Funny challenge! I wasn't believing it after reading the title of your article, but this is actually true :)
I couldn't either! I had to double check it wasn't a spoof at first, lol. That totally made it worth sharing! :D
If a vacuum attachment can be used to cut hair, and space is a vacuum, this problem shouldn't be too hard to solve. Ha!!!
Haha! That's freaking great!
Now this something! I hope I join. We'll read later, so resteemed s that is the only bookmark method here for now. I always knew poop had some use. If you poop don't just walk past every sometimes pay some attention, ponder, wonder what food combination it's host ate to form it. Soap company will tell you 'dirt is good'
Lol! In the movie 'The Martian' with Matt Damon he used the left over poop as fertilizer so he could start farming while trapped up there!
If helpful, the eSteem mobile app does have bookmarking capability! Def something I look forward to seeing done here on the main site someday.
I am experimenting something but it doesn't seem to be working. I hope we talk on it a ebit. #savingthecomments #thebestpostsarecomments
Sure, np. :) We can discuss in steemit.chat.
Have they spoke to the creator of The Wolowitz Zero-Gravity Waste Disposal System?
That was hilarious! I had to look up that video since I've not caught a ton of big bang theory, but YES!! Lol
I always assumed they had solved problems like this! I must have watched too much sci-fi and assumed they had some kind of advanced recycling method.
On the space station it's more of a solved problem. It's more of the "during transit" times they seem to be needing something, specifically while "trapped " in their space suits.
At least from what I've read on it. :)
OK thanks:)
Space Poop. LOL
Well, it's definitely an important issue that needs to be solved! Hubby even turned down the volume of the TV to listen to the NASA challenge. He's a space geek. :) Thanks for sharing this.