3 ms·
Toileting is really fecking important. As someone with a spinal injury you really don't realise just how important until it goes wrong. Apparently one of the d
by azalemeth 6mo ago
Toileting is really fecking important. As someone with a spinal injury you really don't realise just how important until it goes wrong.
Apparently one of the down sides about the previous system was that the separation of solid and liquid excreta ideally required someone to separate their excretion of both kinds. Apparently this is something that male astronauts found much much easier than female ones. Artemis's toilet can handle both at the same time.
I still think they have the good old fashioned Maximum Absorbency Garment for space walks though. (CF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Absorbency_Garment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Absorbency_Garment)
- amelius 6mo ago> separation of solid and liquid excreta this invention might be of use in livestock farming.
- OJFord 6mo agoGP is saying that was previously required, not that it was invented. The new one can handle the mixture; not necessarily (presumably not?) by separating it.
- bluGill 6mo agoLivestock farmers have been doing this for decades. However they have very different constraints. It doesn't matter if a little of one gets mixed with the other - in fact they need enough water in the solids for proper decomposition. Both are normally pumped as well, so the solids are generally expected to be more a viscous liquid than actual solids. They don't want too much water in some stages, but they have plenty of room for a large setteling tank (read gravity works for them). They are also dealing with far more waste than a space mission, so they need something that is efficient/cheap at quantity.
- asdff 6mo agoCentrifuge would separate that stool and urine
- userbinator 6mo agoMore like turn them both into a liquid.
- asdff 6mo agoNah, the solids would crash out to the bottom of the tube.
- stronglikedan 6mo agoI wonder what would happen if they just stood in the bathroom and spun in circles with their suit flap open while they were evacuating. Would it float far enough away fast enough due to centrifugal force for them to be able to catch it with the bag on the backspin, before crashing into the walls of the bathroom?