from the really-takes-the-piss?-or-a-load-of-crap? dept.
NASA wants you to design a space toilet for missions to the moon:
NASA issued a call on Thursday asking for ideas for the ultimate space toilet with its Lunar Loo Challenge. The winner of the space toilet challenge could win $35,000 (approximately £28,000, A$51,000) for the top concept.
Although space toilets are already in use (the International Space Station is scheduled to get an upgrade soon), they are designed for microgravity only. Microgravity is when there's weightlessness in space, and NASA's toilet tech has taken care of that problem already. But the new toilets need to be able to work in lunar gravity as well. Lunar gravity is approximately one-sixth of Earth's gravity, so our waste moves a little differently on the moon.
In addition to having the new toilet function in both microgravity and lunar gravity, it has to adhere to a set of strict specifications. It must have a mass of less than 15 kilograms in Earth's gravity, occupy a volume no greater than 0.12 meter cubed, consume less than 70 watts of power, operate with a noise level less than 60 decibels (no louder than an average bathroom fan) and accommodate both female and male users of different shapes and sizes.
[...] "We are looking forward to seeing what the crowdsourcing community can come up with that is out-of-the-box and bring different perspectives for what is needed for a toilet."
[...] "Think about the needs for the toilet and don't worry about it being for a spacecraft," Interbartolo added. "Break it down to the base functions needed in terms of handling male/female urine, fecal, menses, and how you could do it in a compact and low mass way for an easy-to-use system. These concepts are similar for campers, boats, remote and undeveloped locations."
This challenge has two categories: Technical and Junior. Submissions to both categories are due no later than 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT on Aug. 17.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @09:52AM
Roger Wilco
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @11:33AM (6 children)
[...] "We are looking forward to seeing what the crowdsourcing community can come up for $15,000 so we can take the $15,800,000 savings compared to what we would have paid Boeing and apply it to more hookers and blow to enjoy while we watch Elon launching more rockets in a day than we ever launched in a year".
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday June 27 2020, @03:33PM
All indicators are that NASA's getting out of the rocket-launching business now that there's an option other than Russia. As well they should - let them focus on science and space exploration, not lifting stuff to orbit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @06:13PM
Still better than paying Boeing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Score: 0) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 27 2020, @09:40PM (2 children)
More like, "Since NASA are mostly diversity hires now, we have to crowdsource even the most simple idea even though we should know all there is to know about shitting since our employees spend half their day on the shitters rather than coding or astrophysics."
Musk is well-known for the racist merit system in his companies, which is why he "gets shit done" all day rather than "gets done shit" all day like NASA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @10:36PM (1 child)
Racist merit? Do they get promotions based on their cross-burning skills?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @05:41AM
In all seriousness, I tried to get a job at SpaceX but they turned me down because I didn't have enough experience (only one year) of running my local Ku Klux Klan chapter.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday June 28 2020, @10:18AM
They're taking the wrong approach to this, instead of redoing the reception end, redo the production end. Change the diet to tacos, burritos, and refried beans and the toilet problem gets converted to a far simpler gas venting problem.
I'll take my $35,000 in Taco Bell vouchers, thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @11:37AM
After all, it /is/ a crap job...
ok, I'll get me coat...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:22PM (1 child)
https://nypost.com/2018/03/07/poowatch-drug-suspect-goes-47-days-without-using-the-toilet/ [nypost.com]
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:34PM
Twitter's servers weight more than 15kg on earth. So you can't make the #poowatch hashtag and that renders your solution invalid.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:38PM (5 children)
Granted, this is a messy problem.
Even at 1G, many have problems hitting the target and experience significant frustration over surface tension artifacts resulting in soiled trousers.
A lot of you old guys know all about this, and you younguns will find out all too soon.
I wonder if some sort of anal irrigator would work, but it would be uncomfortable as hell and nearly impossible to keep clean. I remember mom had this rubber bag she would fill with warm water, plug it in my hind end, and a few minutes later, everything comes out with great gusto. Yeh..."enema".
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:48PM
A handheld vacuum cleaner -like solution like they already use at the ISS should solve the problem of surface tension artifacts resulting in soiled trousers. I'm 39, and already is the woman complaining about the dire consequences of surface tension with various liquids. I wonder, could we give moonlanders and other astronauts a specific diet that reduces aforementioned problem? Maybe something ethanol based?
As for anal irregators, I think Lactulose is what you are looking for?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:51PM (3 children)
Pre-stretch like goatse, install adapter coupling in anus. When needed, remove cap from coupling and connect to low vacuum pump for discharge. Recap.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:41PM (2 children)
Got to be careful with the suction; if it sucks the colon closed near the anus you won't get at the poop further back.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday June 27 2020, @07:20PM (1 child)
.. suck harder?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 28 2020, @01:43AM
Sucking harder will close up the colon harder. Won't help. Hoses for suction have to be reinforced to prevent closing up. The colon is far too flexible for that.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:51PM
Some sort of hose with different funnels at the top replaced for various functions and genders and then some sort of suction device attached to it to literally suck the crap out of you followed by some kind of device to really compact the "product", also there should probably be some places to attach recycling devices for those things that need to have another go around the system so it doesn't all get launched into space.
Doesn't plumbing and sanitation experts usually frown upon the idea of menses products in the toilet, those things should go in the trash. Sending only men into space isn't an option I gather? It would be a simple solution and one less issue you have to solve, probably a lot less issues you have to resolve actually. Perhaps some sort of chemically induced menopause might be a solution?
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:52PM
or have we had a lot of crappy stories posted lately? :D
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:55PM
A mission to Uranus
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @01:21PM
Stupid PR stunt. $35k to do what? Make some PowerPoint slides? That's not enough money to work out a prototype or do any serious design, just a gee-wiz concept paper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @01:59PM (1 child)
no effing clue. never pooped in space and wondered if it might be a better toilet if ...
anyways, report from earth, i can say that diet (what you put in at the top) seems to have a influence on what comes out the other end.
not to sound ... disturbing, but my cat and dog produce a firm, solid, yet wet "sausages", which can be moved around (moved AWAY!) with grill tweezers.
for me, it's not as consistant. about 5% of the time the first wipe yields zero steaks (aka "5 star poop"). then there's the 5% case where it runs in all directions (mostly after too much beer and/or eating lazy food (food from people that cook for a living (and are in debt?))).
i assume (?) our ancestors pooped like cats and dogs and made sausages or did everybody back then smell of "badly wiped ass"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:42PM
It's all about the fiber. Most of out ancestors probably had nice solid shits (when they weren't dying of dysentery or something), because they were banned from hunting in the fuedal lord's forest and couldn't afford to eat meat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @03:21PM
http://www.jldr.com/specialist.htm [jldr.com]
(first saw this little book in the 1960s, and it was already a classic)
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:42PM
Are important to incorporate. Hopefully they get an entry from these guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbYWhdLO43Q [youtube.com]
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @06:02PM (1 child)
I was given to understand that the Apollo astronauts used some kind of baggy. For long EVA suit missions they had what was described as a "condom like affair" over their penises to urinate. Not sure what would happen if they had to do no. 2 during EVA. The summary probably isn't asking us to solve that problem. Some of the EVAs are pretty long. What are they doing? Wearing depends and cleaning up on the space station afterwords?
Why not adhere to the KISS design principle? The only new thing that's needed is a comfortable way to fit a urine catcher on the female anatomy without causing UTIs and other problems. That would have "spin-off" applications in civilian life for the incontinent, especially in nursing homes where they're all to frequently catheterized with all the problems that causes... such as more UTIs.
Everything else can go in to a baggy, and then you just need a sealed box to store all the baggies. Then I guess you can just leave this box of stuff on the Moon. It's not like we're going to harm the environment there, although I'm sure somebody will say otherwise.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Saturday June 27 2020, @06:10PM
The MAG [wikipedia.org] (Maximum Absorbancy Garment) is worn for this purpose, yes.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Saturday June 27 2020, @08:15PM (3 children)
≤0.12m
-------
/ /|
/ / | ≤0.12m
------ | Weight<15 Kg
| | | Noise level<60 dB
| 🚻 | / Power<70 W
| |/ ≤0.12m
------
If you produce anything similar, you are violating my patent.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday June 27 2020, @11:36PM (2 children)
I patented ASCII art for drawing boxes. You owe me 75000 euros. Not Dollars. I don't care for that currency,
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Monday June 29 2020, @12:23PM (1 child)
This isn't ASCII art, but Unicode art: notice the "unisex bathroom" emoji on the front of the device!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday June 29 2020, @08:14PM
Yet it utilizes ASCII for drawing boxes, so while true your objection is not relevant.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Saturday June 27 2020, @08:37PM (6 children)
All joking aside, are these really specs for a toilet? 0.12 cm cubed is little over a liter/quart, and at least a quarter of it should be room for the waste, so it sounds very small. At best it would be single use, so it sounds more like a glorified bedpan, unless these are specs for the waste extraction mechanism for a spacesuit.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 28 2020, @01:48AM (5 children)
Is it a 12 cm cube? Or 0.12 cubic metre? Big difference.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday June 28 2020, @03:29AM (4 children)
I'd say
pretty strongly implies they mean it just how it sounds: 0.12m^3. Which could be arranged as a cube 0.49m on a side, amongst many other options.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 28 2020, @06:02PM
Sounds quite feasible. At least, feasible in Earth gravity.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Monday June 29 2020, @12:19PM (2 children)
0.12m^3 is known as 0.12 cubic meter, not 0.12 meter cubed.
I suppose that it really depends on where you place the parentheses: 0.12 (meter cubed) or (0.12 meter) cubed. The former, as I mentioned, is incorrect terminology (and possibly incorrect English), while the latter makes more sense, which is why I chose to interpret it this way.
Looking at TFA, it would seem that what they want is a unisex version of the implement that the astronaut in the accompanying photo is holding, which, minus the attached hose, seems to be comparable in size to what I understood "0.12 meter cubed" to mean.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday June 29 2020, @02:01PM (1 child)
6m^3 is normally read 6 meters cubed, just as 6x^3 is read as 6 ex cubed. It can *also* be read as 6 cubic meters, but that's the "aren't I clever" pronunciation, akin to calling a group of ravens a murder rather than a flock.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday June 29 2020, @02:19PM
To take it a step further - if you're performing advanced calculations where you get a result of 7m^5 you'd read it seven meters to the fifth, just as you could read the above example a six meters to the third - even cubed/squared terminology is shorthand for common exponents.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Saturday June 27 2020, @09:08PM (1 child)
I'm not going to space until they invent a space bidet.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @10:38PM
Bidet + suction would be pretty clean and efficient, but carrying liquid for the bidet probably adds too much weight.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday June 29 2020, @01:03PM
A kilogram is a until of mass, and an object's mass doesn't change with changes in gravity. The force exerted by that mass, measured in Newtons, is m * g.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday June 29 2020, @01:22PM (7 children)
1969 we got to the moon, rly. look at all these photos and vids of the astronauts
1980 we don't need to go to the moon, it's a rock
1990 we going to mars
2000 scrap mars we return to the moon
2010 scrap the moon we going to mars and btw going past those van allen thingies is difficult
2020 scrap mars we return to the moon
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday June 29 2020, @02:24PM (6 children)
And we did in fact send lots of robots to both.
Almost as though there was no point in sending people to either until we were ready to get serious about establishing a permanent outpost. Something that can't be done without either radically more affordable launches (soon available courtesy of SpaceX Starship, hopefully), or enormous long term funding (something NASA struggles with mightily - look at the political boondoggle required to get the SLS built after previous projects got canceled)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday June 29 2020, @08:11PM (5 children)
You send bots where meatbags can't go. Either because the travel is too long or because the danger is too high. Failing missions because you land in a ditch or because your solar panel gets dust is expensive.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday June 29 2020, @09:49PM (4 children)
Or because sending a robot is just a whole lot cheaper. Plenty of robots exploring undersea and underground where humans *could* go safely, if you were willing to spend several times more.
We could have built a permanent lunar outpost after the Apollo program, we had the technology to do it. But between the tyranny of the rocket equation, and the lack of reusable rockets, doing so would have been ridiculously expensive.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday July 02 2020, @08:39AM (3 children)
Undersea and underground has a lag in the order of milliseconds, the average gamer could pilot one of those once familiar with the controls. Score one for humans. Humans can convey emotion and many people are emotionally attached to space exploration, score two for humans.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday July 02 2020, @02:13PM (2 children)
Assuming you have line-of-sight. There's an increasing number of autonomous cave mapping drones being developed specifically because you can't really send wireless signals through twisting caves.
Meanwhile, humans have a much harder time conveying emotion through a robot - especially when there's nobody else around to convey that emotion *to*.
I suspect that even when we start industrializing space, most of the work will be done by (semi-)autonomous robots, with most of the tricky bits done by robots operated by humans that are safe and comfortable in a habitat close enough to provide those sweet millisecond lag times. Humans will only do the work directly when robots lack the dexterity to do what's needed - and as robots improve the number of those jobs will shrink rapidly.
We might even see a lot of early industrialization concentrated in low-ish Earth orbit, where the lag-times to the surface are low enough that robot operators can telecommute from Earth rather than needing to live amongst the many expensive dangers of space.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday July 02 2020, @03:42PM (1 child)
You are talking about established colonization, I am talking about the early, contemporary phase. We send a probe to mars != guy speaking from mars, or the moon.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday July 02 2020, @05:56PM
You're right, it's not. But for now sending an SUV-sized robot is going to be dozens if not hundreds of times cheaper than sending a single person with all the supplies and life support systems they'd need. And for Mars, that person would have to be okay with it being a suicide mission since we don't currently have the technology to bring them back, and sending enough supplies to give them a chance of surviving until we do is likely to raise the cost another couple orders or magnitude.
It's a simple calculation - is the value of science and PR from sending one person greater than the value from sending the dozens or hundreds of robots you could send for the same price? Keeping in mind that the risk of PR backlash from death reduces the expected value of sending a person.
For now there's not much humans can actually do that robots can't - at least not without having a permanent outpost in place to facilitate more in-depth long-term research and other projects. And establishing an outpost is going to be massively more expensive than just sending some people, so it makes sense to send robots to figure out where that outpost should be built for the best return on investment. And of course we can't even seriously consider doing such a thing until someone is willing to pay for it.
SpaceX Starship could potentially change things significantly, being able to (relatively) cheaply land an ISS-sized habitat on the moon for an extended mission and then return to Earth would make in-depth surveying and other research much more practical, to the point that it might be worth doing more in-depth human surveying of potential outpost locations before beginning construction. But for now it would be a real challenge to do much better than the Apollo program - a PR pissing contest that only sent a single scientist on the very last of six landings.