NASA tells workers in Houston to go boldly for science

Tag : Venting System

WASHINGTON - The No. 1 need right now for some of the builders ofthe United States' next spaceship: Lots of No. 1. Space program contractor Hamilton Sundstrand is seeking urine fromworkers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston as This according to an internal memo posted on the websiteNasawatch.com.

The need is voluminous - 30 litres a day, even on weekends. John Lewis, NASA's head of life support systems for Orion, says thecapsule will park unoccupied in space for up to six months whileastronauts work on the moon. That leaves designers with a pressing issue: how to get rid ofstored urine.

"Urine is a mess because urine is full of solids," Lewis said.Those solids clog the venting system for dumping pee, so keepingthe waste disposal system clear is "really a challenge," he said.

NASA has a long standing tradition of collecting samples from itsworkers to help design better space toilets because "you can't makefake urine," Lewis said. The Windsor Locks, Conn.-based company building the Orion toiletneeds the large volume of urine (about the daily output of 30people) to work on urine acidity issues, said spokesman LeoMakowski. The memo seeking daily contributions from July 21 to July31 was not meant to go public, he said.