Last twelvemonth , NASA asked the public for service resolve a problem facing its astronauts : how to accumulate and store tail in blank . NowNPRreports that the five winner of the " Space Poop Challenge " have been foretell , and their estimate are out of this world .
Astronauts currently rely on adult diapers when they need to do their business inside their space courting . AsNASA wroteback in October : " After all : when you got ta go , you obtain ta go . And sometimes you got ta go in a total vacancy . "
bet for a more in high spirits - tech way to get by with these sticky circumstances , the space agency called on members of the populace to present designs for a system capable of collecting urine , faecal matter , and menstrual fluid and routing it forth from the body for 144 hours full-strength .
tight to 20,000 dissident submit over 5000 ideas through the crowdsourcing site HeroX , and on Wednesday , February 15 five winner were revealed . Flight operating surgeon and family practice session physician Thatcher Cardon was awarded the $ 15,000 grand prize for his cunning waste - disposing suit hatch . Inspired by completing complex procedures in tight places as a sawbones , he designed a small-scale air lock in the genitals for excrete underwear , inflatable bedpan , and diaper in and out of the space suit .
The 2nd - place squad is made up of a doctor , a dental practitioner , and an engineering professor who all live in Houston , Texas and studied chemical engine room in college . Their " Air - PUSH Urinary Girdle " uses air to guide thriftlessness aside from the physical structure and stores it in a dissimilar part of the suit . The group , competing under the nameSpace Poop Unification of Doctors(or SPUDs ) , won $ 10,000 for the idea .
The third - post $ 5000 plunder extend to UK - based mathematical product designer Hugo Shelley for his " Zero Gravity Underwear . " According to NPR , he says that the skin - tight unmentionable " feature a new catheter plan for extended habit in microgravity , combined with a mechanics that compresses , sealskin , and sanitise solid waste . "
In complete scenarios , astronauts would never spend anywhere near 144 minute in their suit of clothes and would n’t involve to concern about the question of long - terminus barren assembling . The designs are more for disaster situation when crew members might find themselves stand by in their space suits for up to six Day at a clip . After building prototypes of the gain idea , NASA next desire to prove the systems on the International Space Station .
[ h / tNPR ]
