WASTE MANAGEMENT

Here we ask one fundamental question: can we convert waste into usable resources? If in 1 year, just 4 people produce about 2500 kg of trash, imagine 7000! It is beneficial to think of ways of reducing or transforming it. During such a long-duration mission it is required to regenerate the life-support materials such as C02, hygiene water, urine, sweat and even feces and convert them to usable forms. What advantages do we have by repurposing as much of the mass that we launch up to space with us? For a longduration space travel, converting the waste leads to minimizing the unnecessary volume, creating space for volume needed for all sorts of activities and exploration, “the heart of closing the loop on human spaceflight”. In an extraterrestial habitat a plant-based life support system represents a huge potential for self-sufficiency and food production.

A Different Approach

Instead of providing one or two heavy, excessively complex and expensive, pieces of mechanical equipment, we should provide a large number of simple units running on forward osmosis .Is mostly passive, with no compressors, evaporators, sublimators, distillers, adsorbers, or desorbers, designed to have their capacity consumed gradually throughout the mission. For blackwater or solids , using residue of dry biomass and CaCO3 that can further provide radiation shielding. It promises a low cost, low maintenance, easy, highly redundant system. It contains a unit with polyethylene bag/tank with FO membrs and velved orificies.

Credit: https://bit.ly/2Ouk9RG

 Results:  will provide CO2 removal  O2 revitalization  recycle gray water (great for after the reverse osmosis process presented in the Water Management chapter)  solid waste processing WW Primary Functions (Based on Inputs and Outputs) Air Bag Algae Growth Bag Solid Bag H2O bag Humidity & Thermal Control bag O2 Revitalization   CO2 Removal   Clean Water Production   Semi-Volatile Removal  Urine & Graywater Processing   Blackwater processing  Humidity & Thermal Control  Nutritional Supplement 