[HN Gopher] 'Dune'-Inspired Spacesuit Turns Astronauts' Urine in...
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'Dune'-Inspired Spacesuit Turns Astronauts' Urine into Drinkable
Water
Author : gnicholas
Score : 34 points
Date : 2024-07-12 17:41 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| BhavdeepSethi wrote:
| One of the first exhibits in San Francisco Exploratorium is a
| toilet with a water fountain and a description explaining that
| it's from a clean water source. Knowing this, would you still
| drink the water from the toilet? It's such a fascinating exercise
| in psychology. The urine to drinkable water obviously takes this
| one step further.
|
| https://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/a-sip-of-conflict
| davidw wrote:
| IDK... given how dumb people can be:
|
| Reward: some water you can easily get elsewhere.
|
| Risk: someone like a security guard or employee peed in it at
| some point because they're a jerk.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Unless it's different than the one I've used the fountain
| comes from the supply, not the tank. So it doesn't matter if
| anybody peed in it.
| davidw wrote:
| If it's a dude peeing in it, it'd splash a bit.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| And why would that matter? You're not drinking from a
| cup, but a fountain. All the water you're drinking would
| have been in the pipe while the dude was peeing.
| et-al wrote:
| It's just a water fountain that happens to be mounted on a
| toilet bowl. They're not sourcing their own water.
|
| The worst thing that could happen is the person in front of
| you spits on the outlet (like kids do in elementary school in
| America).
| iszomer wrote:
| It can always be worse: remember the story news outlets
| touted about a Japanese scientist who created meat from
| human excrement which was debunked, TIL today?
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2011/07/08/meat-
| m...
| et-al wrote:
| I've drank from this fountain. With a stillsuit, I think it
| would be more palatable because you don't have the visual
| connotation right in front of you unlike the Exploratorium
| exhibit.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Not the visuals, sure, but there's the question of the salt
| (they say it's reclaimed, I don't know where it ends up) - we
| probably want all those back, and the fact that it would be
| body temperature.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| This is not far from a real product in Japan: a toilet with a
| hand washing sink on the top. Presumably the water used to wash
| your hands is reused flush, saving water.
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sink-toilet-japan/
| hahahacorn wrote:
| This feels reminiscent of the American Billion Dollar Space Pen
| vs Russian Pencil.
|
| Silly Americans, just drink urine! - Bear Grylls, probably.
| js2 wrote:
| Urban legend.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S._and...
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n...
| hahahacorn wrote:
| Yes I'm aware. You'll notice my hardly coherent comment makes
| even less sense if you're not aware of the totality of the
| circumstances surrounding the pen/pencil story and the
| ludicrousness of Bear Grylls drinking his own urine.
| (Comparable to loose graphite shavings in a space station!)
|
| This is a really cool development, but there is a certain
| slice of the population who have watched Bear Grylls who
| believe you can simply drink your own urine and it's good for
| you. Similar to how a certainly slice of the population truly
| believes the US Govt spent $1B developing a pen, while the
| Russians simply used a pencil.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The space pen was made completely privately, with completely
| private investment, by a pen company that saw on opportunity.
| They privately built a pen that would work in space, gave it to
| NASA for clout, and then sold to the public. They spent a few
| millions on it, not billions.
|
| The Soviets bought a hundred of them a few years after. Because
| "Just use a pencil stupid" is incredibly stupid in fact. Lose
| graphite particles or scraps are a terrible thing to have in
| your space craft in zero gravity. They cost about $30 each in
| today's dollars.
| preisschild wrote:
| Didn't the soviets use at least grease pencils? No graphite
| in them, just non-conductive wax.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Or a biro? Don't they work by capillary action rather than
| gravity?
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| Yes. The only advantage of the "space pen" is that it
| works upside down. Ballpoint pens work fine in
| microgravity, but not directly inverted.
| dvh wrote:
| Attaching it to human makes it a moving part. Put it in a box
| somewhere and it will be more reliable. This is the exactly same
| stupid idea as solar frikin' roadways. Take that solar panel and
| put it next to the road.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| Above road
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Great idea, probably dependent upon latitude. In disconnected
| panels. Enough to provide sufficient light during a cloudy
| day. Would simultaneously decrease the amount of AC required
| during summer months, and maybe improve safety by reducing
| sunlight into the eyes of drivers (human or otherwise).
| nashashmi wrote:
| So would green cages, or wired mesh allowing for ivy and
| vegetation growth, arching over roadways.
| kaibee wrote:
| There's a number of edge-case scenarios where you want a lot
| of height clearance above roadways. ie: hauling a wind
| turbine blade or rapidly converting to an airfield.
| sillywalk wrote:
| Currently, astronauts just use a diaper and a 1L water bottle.
| This suit would seem to be an improvement.
| asdff wrote:
| What they really need is a mop wringer and a good filter.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I wouldn't volunteer to be the first guy to try that out.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Seems like an odd solution. The problem, according to another
| non-paywalled article [1] is that astronauts complained about
| lack of liquids on long spacewalks and [glorified] diapers being
| annoying to wear. So this contraption which has a volume of 38cm
| by 23cm by 23cm was developed. I say it's weird because that's 20
| liters of volume (to say nothing of the additional
| complexities/breakable stuff involved)! Why not simply use 10 or
| 20% of the volume and add more room for refreshments? And perhaps
| keep the idea of providing a tube, and just direct it to a
| diaper.
|
| Far less complex, far less volume, far less mass, far less likely
| to break, far cheaper, and probably far more pleasant for the
| astronaut as well.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/12/scie...
| robxorb wrote:
| The ideal solution is for the astronauts to drink their own
| urine. Apparently this can be quite healthy - in moderation
| like occasional spacewalking, and it's not as if astronauts in
| general aren't used to all manner extreme limit-pushing.
| Solarsail wrote:
| Don't agree -w/all this cynicism... (Did I get a programmer's
| joke to work?)
|
| Your fastest open-cycle resource usage is water. If you can
| recycle your water, you've got much slower mass-growth per unit
| of time in free flight. This could make the difference between 8
| hour spacewalk capabilities and 8 day spacewalks.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Things break. Moving things break much more frequently. In
| space, where any error can easily be fatal, you generally want
| to keep things as simple as possible to complete the task at
| hand. As well, when things break you want them to be as easy to
| repair as possible. Complexity should be avoided unless
| absolutely necessary, or in cases where the benefit provided is
| tremendous. Extremely lengthy spacewalks won't happen for
| numerous reasons (oxygen, battery, exhaustion, radiation, and
| so on) so that's not really even a desirable goal.
| guhidalg wrote:
| > Extremely lengthy spacewalks won't happen for numerous
| reasons (oxygen, battery, exhaustion, radiation, and so on)
| so that's not really even a desirable goal.
|
| You're not thinking creatively enough. When life support
| fails and astronauts have to live in their suits for extended
| periods of time, what is the difference between an extended
| spacewalk and having to live in your suit for a while?
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| Don't spacesuits mostly use water for cooling, with a supply of
| ice that gradually absorbs heat (from the closed loop) and
| sublimates into space?
| saagarjha wrote:
| What about oxygen though
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| I would 100% psychosomatically taste the scent of urine in this
| water
| rdlw wrote:
| They don't even have to add flavour!
| sillywalk wrote:
| Ars Technica has a non-paywalled article.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/scientists-built-rea...
| _3u10 wrote:
| Bear Grylls was the first to buy one.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| also a good way to screen out astronaut candidates
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