from Hacker News

'Dune'-Inspired Spacesuit Turns Astronauts' Urine into Drinkable Water

by gnicholas on 7/12/24, 5:41 PM with 41 comments

  • by BhavdeepSethi on 7/12/24, 6:24 PM

    One of the first exhibits in San Francisco Exploratorium is a toilet with a water fountain and a description explaining that it's from a clean water source. Knowing this, would you still drink the water from the toilet? It's such a fascinating exercise in psychology. The urine to drinkable water obviously takes this one step further.

    https://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/a-sip-of-conflict

  • by dvh on 7/12/24, 6:30 PM

    Attaching it to human makes it a moving part. Put it in a box somewhere and it will be more reliable. This is the exactly same stupid idea as solar frikin' roadways. Take that solar panel and put it next to the road.

  • by hahahacorn on 7/12/24, 6:25 PM

    This feels reminiscent of the American Billion Dollar Space Pen vs Russian Pencil.

    Silly Americans, just drink urine! - Bear Grylls, probably.

  • by Solarsail on 7/12/24, 6:45 PM

    Don't agree -w/all this cynicism... (Did I get a programmer's joke to work?)

    Your fastest open-cycle resource usage is water. If you can recycle your water, you've got much slower mass-growth per unit of time in free flight. This could make the difference between 8 hour spacewalk capabilities and 8 day spacewalks.

  • by _3u10 on 7/12/24, 7:39 PM

    Bear Grylls was the first to buy one.

  • by somenameforme on 7/12/24, 6:41 PM

    Seems like an odd solution. The problem, according to another non-paywalled article [1] is that astronauts complained about lack of liquids on long spacewalks and [glorified] diapers being annoying to wear. So this contraption which has a volume of 38cm by 23cm by 23cm was developed. I say it's weird because that's 20 liters of volume (to say nothing of the additional complexities/breakable stuff involved)! Why not simply use 10 or 20% of the volume and add more room for refreshments? And perhaps keep the idea of providing a tube, and just direct it to a diaper.

    Far less complex, far less volume, far less mass, far less likely to break, far cheaper, and probably far more pleasant for the astronaut as well.

    [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/12/scie...

  • by brcmthrowaway on 7/12/24, 6:55 PM

    I would 100% psychosomatically taste the scent of urine in this water

  • by sillywalk on 7/12/24, 7:19 PM

  • by insane_dreamer on 7/12/24, 10:09 PM

    also a good way to screen out astronaut candidates