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KIDS: Our World!
EVAN: Wow Globey, water sure is heavy.
You can get a tough workout just lifting water.
One gallon of water weighs almost 4 kilograms.
That's over pounds or as much as lifting 2 bags
of flour or sugar at the same time.
And did you know that over half the human body is water.
We use water to break down food and get rid of waste.
We also use waste to transport food throughout the body.
In fact, all living things need a regular supply of water
to stay healthy.
You have probably been told that you need 8 glasses
of water everyday. But we use
water in lots of other ways as well.
Think about how much water we use for showers, to wash our
clothes, to flush our toilets, or to prepare our food.
Most people in the United States use over 302 litters or
about 80 gallons of water each day. That's a lot of water.
Astronauts need to use water too.
But all the water for the International Space Station or
for any future long term missions has to be sent up
on a spacecraft. Like the shuttle.
Think about how much weight that must add to the
space craft. The more the space craft weighs, the more fuel it
needs, and the more expensive it becomes to send into space.
Besides, water takes up a lot of space.
If NASA wants to send astronauts somewhere for a long
period of time, they need to bring an enormous amount
of water to survive... or would they?
Since October of 2000, a full time crew of 3 people has lived
on the The International Space Station. The ISS was built by
several countries all working together.
Current NASA missions help add parts to the station that will
make life a bit easier and allow an even larger crew
to live there. As it turns out, the astronauts who live on
the space station are much better at conserving
water than we are. Each astronaut only uses
between 11 and 12 liters or
about 3 gallons of water each day.
Still the astronauts need a constant supply of clean water
and oxygen on the space station to survive.
One of the main challenges is trying to figure out how to
give the astronauts enough water to use without allowing
any water to go to waste.
I have one word for you... Recycle.
Monsi Roman is the Project Manager for Exploration Life
Support at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
She and other scientists are studying, testing, and creating
life support systems that will help our astronauts live for
extended lengths of time in space, and on the
International Space Station.
MONSI ROMAN: This wonderful facility is actually the place
where we bring people to come and exercise. This is the
place where we collect all human metabolic loads.
Which mainly means we collect humidity from
sweat and respiration. We collect humidity from food
because we cook foods in here too. We also bring to this
area water from urine and shower, shower water.
Any waste water that is produced by humans
during hygiene. Like brushing your teeth, washing your hands,
shower water, all that. It's put together in this area.
EVAN: That's right. They're actually testing ways to use
every bit of water on the ISS.
And that even means changing a person's urine into water that
the astronauts can drink. Now I know that may sound a
bit yucky. But it's actually a very smart and very necessary
way to help astronauts survive.
And the more drinkable water they have on the International
Space Station, the more astronauts they can have
living there. In fact, a water processor has just been sent to
the space station which will eventually allow them to
double the size of the station's crew.
TIM KOPRA: Hi, I'm Tim Kopra, one of the crew of the
International Space Station. Our station is currently
orbiting 240 miles above the Earth and traveling at
17500 miles per hour.
You know, if you were to buy a bottle of water here, it would
cost about 20 thousand dollars. It takes a lot of rocket fuel
to ship water and other supplies into outer space.
And that's really expensive, so it makes a lot of sense to
recycle our water and use it over and over again.
Below me is a system on board called the
water recovery system. And it's connected to our water
dispenser and that's what this whole device is about.
About recycling our water. We use this to provide our fresh
water on board space station.
It's important to be able to recycle water especially when
we look forward to future missions to the Moon,
Mars, and beyond. The water recovery system or WRS
cuts the need for delivery of fresh water to the ISS
by about 65%. It will recycle 6,000 pounds of water
every year. The WRS can
recycle about 93% of the water it receives. Look at this.
This is some drinking water that I got from our water
dispenser from the WRS and it's recycled.
Tastes good.
EVAN: Another thing the astronauts need to conserve
is oxygen. Everyone knows we humans need oxygen to breathe.
Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide
or CO2. Currently on the International Space Station,
that CO2 collected and send it out into space.
Today's scientists are looking for ways to recycle that CO2.
Pulling the oxygen from it, so nothing goes to waste.
Scientists aren't just working on recycling water and oxygen
so astronauts can live on the International Space Station.
NASA's wants to continue to explore far away places
in space. In order to make that happen, our astronauts
will need to rely on these recycling efforts.
That also means the machines that change waste into clean
water and clean oxygen will need to run for long periods of
time without breaking down. And if they do break down,
they'll need to be able to be fixed easily and quickly.
MONSI ROMAN: Things do break. That would be one of our
biggest... but the other thing is looking at alternatives,
at new things. New technologies are coming up
that we were unable to look at when we started the design of
the space station 20, 25 years ago.
Now we have other technologies available. And if we can
inject those technologies into the technologies that we
already know work, and see how we can make them better.
EVAN: Things have already changed a lot since astronauts
first went to live on the International Space Station.
Hopefully through recycling, we'll be able to send future
astronauts into space for really long periods of time.
And the longer they can stay in space, the farther
they'll be able to travel. But more importantly, just
think of what we'll be able to learn about recycling that we
can use here on Earth. NASA technology can help us change
the way our water treatment plants help make water safe.
And we can learn a lot from astronauts about
water conservation.
So the next time you're brushing your teeth, think
about the astronauts and remember to turn off
the faucet while brushing.
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KIDS: Our World!
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