Posted on 07/12/2024 8:30:31 AM PDT by Red Badger
The new spacesuit design (illustrated) that collects urine and recycles it into drinking water weighs around 8 kilograms and can purify half a liter of water in five minutes.
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In the science-fiction series Dune, the desert-dwelling Fremen of the arid planet Arrakis recycle their body’s moisture using specially designed outfits called stillsuits. Inspired by such imaginings, a new prototype spacesuit converts astronauts’ urine into drinkable water, researchers report July 12 in Frontiers in Space Technology.
“I’ve been a fan of the Dune series for as long as I can remember,” says Sofia Etlin, a space medicine and policy researcher at Cornell University. “Building a real life stillsuit was always a bit of a dream.”
While suited up in space, astronauts currently relieve themselves into what’s known as a maximum absorbency garment, which is essentially a multilayered diaper containing a super-absorbent polymer (SN: 3/11/11). The garment is known to be uncomfortable, leak and cause urinary tract infections.
Current spacesuit designs also incorporate an in-suit drinking bag, or IDB, that carries less than a liter of water. Astronauts can sometimes go for eight- to 12-hour spacewalks, which often includes enormous amounts of physical exertion, Etlin says. NASA’s future Artemis missions on the moon will probably see explorers spending at least as much time or longer on the lunar surface, though current plans have them carrying IDBs of the same size, she says (SN: 12/1/22).
Etlin and her colleagues designed and built a new type of undergarment with a collection cup that goes over an astronaut’s private parts. Urine is routed into a filtration system that first removes salty water from the urine and then uses a pump to take the salt out from that water. The filtered water is enriched with electrolytes and then sent into the IDB.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Sweat will be tackled in their next prototype...............
Isn’t this how Kevin Costner started the “Waterworld” movie?
Dune is waaaay older............
He stole the idea..................
I spent a few years wearing cleanroom suits here on Earth. It’s still pretty bad and takes a long time to go away. Even when you think it’s all OK, boom, here it comes again.
I heard about the movie but never saw it.
The sci-fi book original series was written in the late 60’s early 70’s............
Code words for allowing electrolytes from the urine to be recycled back into the IDB.
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