The NASA Artemis mission It has the objective of returning astronauts to the surface of the Moon. The idea, in principle, is to set foot on the natural satellite, carry out a couple of short expeditions and return to Earth again. However, the goal is to make frequent trips in which scientists spend weeks or months, just as they do in the International Space Station (ISS).
There are space suits, rockets, ships, orbiters and all the scientific and technological paraphernalia to reach the Moon. But NASASpace and commercial agencies working on this project have a problem: they don’t know what they are going to do with the astronauts’ poop or excrement.
Previous missions (late 1960s and 1970s) astronauts carried bags in which they left their excrement or urine on the surface of the Moon.. In addition to being practical, at the time it was a kind of experiment, since an enormous number of microbes survive there and it was a test of knowing how much they could survive in the lunar environment.
The difference now is that if they intend to install bases on the Moon, NASA has to solve the waste issue, so as not to repeat pollution errors that we constantly suffer on Earth.
“If there are going to be humans living permanently on the Moon, you don’t want poop bags lying around. It’s a danger. It’s unsightly. It’s not what we want to do. So the question is, what are the environmental standards that we will apply? We currently don’t have any hard and fast rules,” said Melissa de Zwart, a professor at the University of Adelaide who specializes in the legal and regulatory aspects of space or the outdoor environment, according to a review. Wired.
Everything seems to indicate that NASA already has a toilet plan so that astronauts who go to the Moon have a practical way to go to the bathroom. What is not clear is what will be done with the waste, which also has a different consistency, due to the gravity environments of our natural satellite.
In 2020, NASA launched a contest for scientists from around the world to submit their ideasbut they have not yet announced which system won.
