water water everywhere...

So, when is the new unit to process urine going to be launched, and has
anyone any idea why two units had such short lives?
From what I'm given to understand, the technology is not exactly new, and
similar devices have been run on earth for a very long time indeed. Thus it
has to be something different about the behaviour of fluids in micro
gravity, maybe air bubbles or something.

Brian

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Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!

Brian Gaff wrote:

From what I'm given to understand, the technology is not exactly new, and
similar devices have been run on earth for a very long time indeed. Thus it
has to be something different about the behaviour of fluids in micro
gravity, maybe air bubbles or something.

The Russian experience with Elektron has shown very much that devices
that handle any liquid in space behave differently than when tested on
the ground.

The whole point of the ISS is to develop and test such devices and debug
them, measure their MTBF so that when you are realy to build a long
duration ship, you have systems with known MTBF and the tooling and
documentation needed to do field repairs.

It has taken the russians quite a bit of time to debug Elektron (is it
reliable by now ?). Lets see how long it takles the americans to debug
their water based systems. It isn't an easy job.

John Doe wrote:

Brian Gaff wrote:

From what I'm given to understand, the technology is not exactly new, and
similar devices have been run on earth for a very long time indeed. Thus
it has to be something different about the behaviour of fluids in micro
gravity, maybe air bubbles or something.

The Russian experience with Elektron has shown very much that devices
that handle any liquid in space behave differently than when tested on
the ground.

The whole point of the ISS is to develop and test such devices and debug
them, measure their MTBF so that when you are realy to build a long
duration ship, you have systems with known MTBF and the tooling and
documentation needed to do field repairs.

It has taken the russians quite a bit of time to debug Elektron (is it
reliable by now ?). Lets see how long it takles the americans to debug
their water based systems. It isn't an easy job.


Right now the trouble with the urine processing system onboard ISS seems to
be that astronaut urine is absolutely loaded with calcium, and Russian
urine is chemically a bit different from American urine. All we've done up
to now is really just to give the engineers a chance to tackle these
specific problems. I'm very glad they get to work on them, and that I
don't have to. Yuck.

Mike Ross

Actually, Urine is pretty sterile when fresh. There are some famous people
who swear by having a glass every day...

While you ponder that though, I'd have thought the only changes would be due
to diet, as the human body is not that different I'd imagine. The calcium
angle is interesting, but maybe this is where all the bone density is going.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:

Brian Gaff wrote:

From what I'm given to understand, the technology is not exactly new,
and
similar devices have been run on earth for a very long time indeed. Thus
it has to be something different about the behaviour of fluids in micro
gravity, maybe air bubbles or something.

The Russian experience with Elektron has shown very much that devices
that handle any liquid in space behave differently than when tested on
the ground.

The whole point of the ISS is to develop and test such devices and debug
them, measure their MTBF so that when you are realy to build a long
duration ship, you have systems with known MTBF and the tooling and
documentation needed to do field repairs.

It has taken the russians quite a bit of time to debug Elektron (is it
reliable by now ?). Lets see how long it takles the americans to debug
their water based systems. It isn't an easy job.


Right now the trouble with the urine processing system onboard ISS seems
to
be that astronaut urine is absolutely loaded with calcium, and Russian
urine is chemically a bit different from American urine. All we've done
up
to now is really just to give the engineers a chance to tackle these
specific problems. I'm very glad they get to work on them, and that I
don't have to. Yuck.

Mike Ross