Posted on 03/31/2020 3:26:00 PM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
Scientists: Astronauts Could Build Moon Base Using Human Urine Need a resilient lunar building material? Urine luck. VICTOR TANGERMANN5 HOURS AGO In cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), a team of European researchers have conducted a… strange experiment. They mixed urea — the main compound found in mammalian urine — with materials, including Moon rocks, to test if we could one day use astronaut pee to build a lunar base.
The urea itself acted as a “plasticizer” — stuff that allows us to shape other harder materials into different forms. In their unusual experiment, the team used an analog of lunar regolith, or loose Moon rock, and mixed it with the urea.
The big advantage: using local materials is a lot easier — and dramatically cheaper — than lugging heavy construction supplies from Earth.
“To make geopolymer concrete that will be used on the moon, the idea is to use what is already there: regolith and the water from the ice present in some areas,” Ramón Pamies, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Spain, and co-author of the study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production last month, said in a statement.
“But moreover, with this study, we have seen that a waste product, such as the urine of the personnel who occupy the moon bases, could also be used,” Pamies explained. “The two main components of urine are water and urea, a molecule that allows the hydrogen bonds to be broken and, therefore, reduces the viscosities of many aqueous mixtures.”
Using a 3D printer, the team squeezed out Playdough-like shapes out of the urine concrete. 3D printing has become one of the most promising ways to build structures on distant planets including the Moon and Mars.
After heating them up to a temperature of 80 degrees C (176 Fahrenheit), they found that the resulting structures could support heavy weights — even after eight freeze-thaw cycles that simulated several day and night cycles on the lunar surface.
But there’s still one minor hurdle to overcome before we decide to build Urinetown on the face of the Moon. “We have not yet investigated how the urea would be extracted from the urine, as we are assessing whether this would really be necessary, because perhaps its other components could also be used to form the geopolymer concrete,” co-author Anna-Lena Kjøniksen, professor at Østfold University College, said in the statement.
READ MORE: Astronauts could use their own urine to build moon bases one day [Space.com]
“This crater is cold.....
(and deep)...”
And for the nitrates for gunpowder.
Pee bricks
They’re soon to be renamed “The You’re a’ Peein Space Agency.”
“One small unzip for man...”
A kid I knew in junior high peed on the radiator in the restroom. Got any idea how bad heated urine smells?
A lot depends on how well hydrated he was, I’d guess.
If not well diluted, then pretty nasty LOL.
Actually, no. I'm more familiar with the way spit smells after it hits the radiator.
The stench filled the building. It was nauseating.
“Yuri” Alekseyevich Gagarin should have waited to ‘live stream’...
Gonna need a lot of beer.
:-)
Then you're going to need some grain.
Wouldn’t that be great.
One of the hard things, when this old guy goes tent-camping, is getting up a few times a night to pee. A gallon milk jug comes in handy...
On the moon, all I’d have to do is pee on the wall.
They don’t need astronauts. They could just send up a billion pissants.
Yeah, it would be like chinking the gaps in a log cabin.
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