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NASA has agreed to buy a Russian space toilet for $19 million US that filters urine into drinkable water.
The new toilet will go on the International Space Station, which currently has only one toilet for a crew of three. The crew will expand to six members in 2009, and space bosses don’t want astronauts lining up when they have to go.
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And so, the toilet pumps urine to a U.S.-made filtering system. Water molecules are very small, and the filters can remove anything made of bigger molecules — in particular, the organic waste in urine. Solid matter is separated from the liquid, stored in tanks and returned to Earth on the earliest possible spaceship.
The filtering technology is tried and true, Quine notes. “It’s fairly elaborate — osmotic systems with various layers of charcoal and things to take out things that you don’t want to recycle.”
Why do they bring the solids back to earth?
And, how long until this is heralded as a solution to global warming?