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Space Science

Food From The Space Toilet 14

Posted by timothy from the have-some-chickpeas dept.
Paintthemoon writes: "The European Space Agency is testing components for a system to recycle human waste in space. Saying that the ability to turn waste into food is crucial for long-haul missions (such as to Mars) or colonizing efforts, the ESA hopes that the entire system can be assemled and tested as a unit in 2005." The food is probably not a great reason to head to space, unfortunately.
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Food From The Space Toilet

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  • Maybe I'm entirely outta wack, but isn't human waste... umm... waste? The body is rejecting the stuff it can't use?
    I'm sure that a minor amount maybe good, but nothing significant. I don't see anyone getting any significant amount of nutrients from crap! Especially urine, which is biological waste.
    • Maybe I'm just totally crazy, but it seems like I saw a website about plants http://www.plants.org/ They somehow turn waste products from animals (urine, feces, carbon dioxide) into nutrients! However, the project is open source, so I'm not so sure about its future. After all, if anyone can just go pick nutrients off a stationary life form, who would pay?
    • I'm not sure about the solid waste, but a person who is drinking plenty of fluids throughout the day will pass lots of water. So water could be extracted from pee before it's expelled from the craft.

      I just hate the thought of eating/drinking something that's already taken a hike on the digestive trail.

      So now if an astronaut farts, would another astronaut ask, "Mmmm, what'cha got cooking?"
  • At least it's a step up from that horrible astronaut food (anyone ever try astronaut pizza?) they sell at museums like the Smithsonian.

    *gag*
  • to the phrase "Eat shit"...

    It has some value *if*needed* but who would really want to eat it. somebody should look at making something like what they eat on the matrix.. :)
  • A waste processing system like this one mentioned is all about recycling the human waste so that it can be used as plant fertilizer: this is something we do all the time, cow paddies make great fertilizer for all kinds of crops.

    Unfortunatly, human waste doesn't help out plants much as is, due to the fauna present in the human intestine: most of our fecal waste needs to be further processed by other microorganisms before the nutrients are available to plants as good fertilizers( the first 3-4 systems proposed in the article). The "food" that would be produced from the recyling process could conceivably be regular vegatables, that are simply grown in a soil that is fertilized with recycled (broken down) human waste. The food would taste as close to crap as fresh vegtables grown in soil fertilized with cow manure do.

    In a closed system like this, no nutrients should be lost to the system, only the energy of chemical bonds. As long as the astronauts don't gain any weight, what goes in (food) must come out: CO2, urine, and fecal matter. In a system such as that proposed, energy is put back into the system by the formation of chemical bonds (via light) during photosynthesis by plants: resulting in the formation of sugars, and eventually proteins. CO2 is also recycled by the plants (it's used to form sugars and O2) , with the processed human waste being used to provide a good fertilizer: Potasium, Nitrogen and Phosphorus (its what's in 20:20:20 fertilizer) as well as essential trace elements.

  • If they ever do this trip to Mars, I wonder how they will "prime the system", so to speak. I'm guessing they would have to get it set up in orbit with a temporary crew that had other stuff to fall back on in case it didn't work right away. Or maybe they could attach it to Alpha and switch it over to the Mars craft after it stabalizes.

  • Is it just me, or does this food always taste like shit?

  • Colonizing? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is that a joke? Colonizing space with food made from turd? :-)

  • Seems like this technique has been used before -- at least according to some of my experiences with airline "food". :*)

    But seriously, if they can succeed in getting this to work well, I could see some earth-bound applications in waste water treatment plants. There's a ready supply that costs $BIGNUM to clean up. Not that I'd expect there'd be a big market for PEOPLE who would buy some at the supermarket for dinner; but I could see it being used to good effect as a feed for LIVESTOCK.

    Of course, much of all that depends on how energy efficient (that is, cost-effective) a process it is. Then again, it could be that the cost of this "food" would be greater than other currently available food sources.

  • Sorry to be slightly off topic, but does anyone know why this story doesn't appear on the main page? I am not even sure how I stumbled across it.

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