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Astronauts Can Look Forward to Eating Their Own Waste Converted Into a "Smear of 'Microbial Goo'"

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the nom-nom-nom-nope dept.

takyon writes:

Microbes may help astronauts transform human waste into food

Human waste may one day be a valuable resource for astronauts on deep-space missions. Now, a Penn State research team has shown that it is possible to rapidly break down solid and liquid waste to grow food with a series of microbial reactors, while simultaneously minimizing pathogen growth.

"We envisioned and tested the concept of simultaneously treating astronauts' waste with microbes while producing a biomass that is edible either directly or indirectly depending on safety concerns," said Christopher House, professor of geosciences, Penn State. "It's a little strange, but the concept would be a little bit like Marmite or Vegemite where you're eating a smear of 'microbial goo.'"

[...] "Each component is quite robust and fast and breaks down waste quickly," said House. "That's why this might have potential for future space flight. It's faster than growing tomatoes or potatoes."

Today, astronauts aboard the International Space Station recycle a portion of water from urine, but the process is energy intensive, said House. Solid waste management has been a bigger hurdle. This currently is ejected into the Earth's atmosphere where it burns up.

"Imagine if someone were to fine-tune our system so that you could get 85 percent of the carbon and nitrogen back from waste into protein without having to use hydroponics or artificial light," said House. "That would be a fantastic development for deep-space travel."

Coupling of anaerobic waste treatment to produce protein- and lipid-rich bacterial biomass (DOI: 10.1016/j.lssr.2017.07.006) (DX)

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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:27AM (3 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:27AM (#630214) Homepage Journal

    that North Korean soldier who defected recently was full of tapeworms.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:46AM (#630222)

    *defecated

    FTFY

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @07:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @07:24AM (#630228)

    that North Korean soldier who defected recently was full of tapeworms.

    You should familiarize yourself with the lifecycle of the actual parasite. You don't get it by eating poop. And if you did, you would probably not be very happy about it since it would not exactly be living in your gut.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapeworm#Lifecycle [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 30 2018, @04:38PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 30 2018, @04:38PM (#630445) Journal

    I thought a tapeworm was something you fed to a computer in War Games the 1984 movie.

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