SLS / Orion / Beyond-LEO HSF - Constellation > Missions To Mars (HSF)
Ways to reduce ECLSS water requirements on a human Mars mission
Slarty1080:
I have just been reading a technology article: Mars 2, 72-82, 2006; doi:10.1555/mars.2006.0005 that discusses ECLSS for a human Mars mission, which I found on one of the threads here.
This suggests that the vast majority of water used on a human Mars mission is for hygiene purposes with half of all water being used for “laundry” at 12.5 out of 22.1kg/CM/day. (reference Hanford 2004/2005 for this figure).
This seems quite fantastical to me. Granted this is an old report (2006) but was/is this even a remotely accurate? If so has anyone carried out any work to see if this amount could be reduced?
Regardless of the accuracy of this report, has anyone considered using supercritical CO2 as a washing medium to reduce the water required - whatever amount it is?
http://e3tnw.org/ItemDetail.aspx?id=512
Even if the laundry water requirement was much less it might still be useful.
speedevil:
--- Quote from: Slarty1080 on 03/18/2018 08:54 pm ---This suggests that the vast majority of water used on a human Mars mission is for hygiene purposes with half of all water being used for “laundry” at 12.5 out of 22.1kg/CM/day. (reference Hanford 2004/2005 for this figure).
This seems quite fantastical to me. Granted this is an old report (2006) but was/is this even a remotely accurate? If so has anyone carried out any work to see if this amount could be reduced?
--- End quote ---
Perhaps by not doing that?
This is a 'quite high' figure - I'm pretty sure I'm beating that on laundry use with no special effort at all, just purchasing a moderately efficient washing machine. Examine the assumptions in the original references, and see if they're even slightly plausible.
(I am not doing manual labour).
You need quite a large amount if you're assuming daily 'normal' showers, as I suspect that may be.
You need remarkably less if more water efficient techniques are used.
john smith 19:
--- Quote from: speedevil on 03/18/2018 10:00 pm ---
--- Quote from: Slarty1080 on 03/18/2018 08:54 pm ---This suggests that the vast majority of water used on a human Mars mission is for hygiene purposes with half of all water being used for “laundry” at 12.5 out of 22.1kg/CM/day. (reference Hanford 2004/2005 for this figure).
This seems quite fantastical to me. Granted this is an old report (2006) but was/is this even a remotely accurate? If so has anyone carried out any work to see if this amount could be reduced?
--- End quote ---
Perhaps by not doing that?
This is a 'quite high' figure - I'm pretty sure I'm beating that on laundry use with no special effort at all, just purchasing a moderately efficient washing machine. Examine the assumptions in the original references, and see if they're even slightly plausible.
(I am not doing manual labour).
You need quite a large amount if you're assuming daily 'normal' showers, as I suspect that may be.
You need remarkably less if more water efficient techniques are used.
--- End quote ---
Keep in mind the "laundry" method for ISS is "Change to new set of clothes" :(
This is one of those things that's going to need to addressed if we want human presence to be anything but a base in space (any part of space). :(
Slarty1080:
Good point, although at 12.5kg of clothes per day they could probably wear disposable duffel coats? I think that the report is badly flawed and makes some unrealistic assumptions about water consumption.
So is there a more recent report available which uses realistic water quantities? Seems it’s a critical point to get right as even allowing for recycling of water this 12.5kg would equate to many tons of extra water.
In early mission planning who or how do they keep track of issues like this? I’m sure this is just scratching the surface. I didn’t look at all the other figures in detail.
guckyfan:
If I remember correctly at the NASA workshop for selecting landing sites they set the requirement of available 80-120t of ISRU water. That was for 2 or 3 expeditions to the same site and camp.
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