The NASA wants to help astronauts to relieve themselves in the Luna And, for this, it needs your collaboration and your ingenuity. The American space agency has announced that will offer $ 35,000 (about 31,000 euros) in prizes for those who design a toilet so it can be used on the Earth satellite.
NASA intends to send astronauts back to the Moon by 2024 and the crew will obviously have to go to bath during the mission and the conventional toilet that we know here on Earth, things of gravity, is not usable in the space.
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The toilet will be adapted in the Artemis lander so, in addition to having to adapt to the gravity of the Moon (where gravity is approximately a sixth of what we feel on Earth), it will also have to be functional on the surface of our closest satellite and adjust to the male and female physiognomy (between 48 and 130 kilos), since the mission’s crew will be made up of men and women.
Extensive specification
Other conditions established by NASA are that the toilet can be vomited without the crew member having to put his head inside it, which weighs less than 15 kilos and measures less than 0.12 cubic meters, which gives support for at least 14 days to two crew members, which allows removing debris outside the ship, which is easy to clean, which allows a time between uses of less than five minutes, which consume less than 70 watts of power and that it makes less noise than a domestic fan.
NASA has calculated the amount of stool, urine fluid, and menstruation that must be able to withstand
The designs of the toilets, in general, should keep the Water and “help maintain a pristine environment within the lander, which is odor free and other pollutants, “explains NASA in the specification, which cites CNN News.
In them, we also see a series of slightly more embarrassing features, but obviously necessary for users of the toilet.
- Accommodate simultaneous urination and defecation
- Collect up to 1 liter of urine per use, with an average of 6 uses per crew per day
- Accommodate 500 g of stool per defecation, with an average of 2 uses per crew per day
- Accommodate 500g of diarrhea per event
- Accommodate an average of 114 g of menstruation female, per crew per day
The $ 35,000 will be divided into three grand prizes, the largest is $ 20,000 and the winners of the second and third will receive $ 10,000 and $ 5,000, respectively. The deadline to submit the designs (you can participate in this link) is August 17 and the winners will be announced in October.
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