WASHINGTON — The No. 1 need right now for
some of the builders of the nation's next spaceship: Lots of No. 1.
Space program contractor Hamilton Sundstrand
is seeking urine from workers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston as part of
its work on the new Orion
space capsule that would eventually take astronauts to the moon, according
to an internal memo posted on the Web site Nasawatch.com.
The need is voluminous: 30 liters a day,
which translates into nearly 8 gallons. Even on weekends.
Designers of the Orion, which will park
unoccupied in space for up to six months while astronauts work
on the moon, have to solve a pressing issue of getting rid of stored urine,
said John Lewis, NASA's head of life support systems for Orion.
"Urine is a mess because urine is full
of solids," Lewis said. Those solids clog the venting system for dumping
pee, so keeping the waste disposal system clear is "really a
challenge," he said.
NASA has a long standing tradition of collecting
samples from its workers to help design better space toilets because "you
can't make fake urine," Lewis said.
The Windsor Locks, Conn.-based company
building the Orion toilet needs the large volume of urine (about the daily
output of 30 people) to work on urine acidity issues, said spokesman Leo
Makowski. The memo seeking daily contributions from July 21 to July 31 was not
meant to go public, he said.
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