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]
Has anybody tried to use a 3D Printer in Zero or 1/6th gravity of the Moon.
And it is unlike that anyone will have a 3-D printer available on the moon
Lordy what a waste of research money
Victor Bergman would have rejected the notion for Alpha.
is suppose depending on part size you could use a centrifuge for gravity
Separating the urea from urine would be easy. Urine is about 95% water and 5% urea. The moon has an almost unlimited supply of vacuum, so vacuum distillation would be simple. They would probably want to conserve and reuse the water, so that would add some complexity to the process.
And that's how Neil Armstrong got Buzz Aldrin to open his fly on the moon.
Early April’s fool joke?
I’ve been had!
I was wondering the same thing.
Pee pees and wee wees. ..
https://youtu.be/3JR_QLj8cI8
Gabrielle Drake, as LT Gay Ellis.
And I see a few people beat me to it.
Guys, I have a hard enough time peeing straight on Earth with gravity, no way this will work on the Moon.....
“People used to sell their piss to be used in tanning leather.”
There were times they were forbidden selling it. The King needed it to make gunpowder.
Look up “the urine man” sometime. One of the worst jobs ever.
L
"You really want to impress us? BRING BACK OUR FLAG, *******s!" -- Sam Kinison
A most excellent idea. However one must consider the cost of sending thousands of gallons of good IPA to the moon to pissed out by the astronauts and then be modified via chemical process to a usable product. It might be better to send the needed product to the moon instead of relying on astronaut piss.
In all seriousness. Due to our present state of technology manned missions to the moon or other planets is ridiculous. With robotic missions we can discover much more good science at a fraction of the cost of a manned mission. The Apollo Missions to the moon were political and not scientific. However, I am glad we did them. It was necessary.
I don’t see why not. We have a house and senate built on a pile of s#!t.
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