CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. - When NASA's shuttle Endeavour launches toward the
International Space Station this Friday, it will be hauling the mother lode of
new gear for some orbital renovations.
Set to ride
up to the station aboard Endeavour are a spare space toilet, a second
kitchen, a two new bedrooms, gym equipment and a novel system to recycle urine
into fresh drinking water. Consider it a high-tech version of "This Old House"
in space.
"They're
kind of billing it here as like extreme home improvement," Endeavour commander
Chris Ferguson said in an interview. "You can build a skyscraper, but it's not
a living building until you put in the plumbing and you put in the electrical
work. And that's what we have the privilege of doing."
The new
gear is packed away inside Leonardo, an Italian-built cargo pod nestled in
Endeavour's payload bay, for the shuttle's planned Friday night launch at 7:55
p.m. EST (0055 Nov. 15 GMT). It's designed to prime the space station to
accommodate double-sized, six-astronaut crews next year.
"It's such
a large vehicle that just the maintenance of such a vehicle with a
three-person crew gets to be difficult," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's station
program manager, of the outpost's need to boost crew size.
A space
water cycle
The station
is currently home to U.S. astronauts Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff and Russian
cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov. But to handle the needs of three more live-in
spaceflyers the station needs more water and other vital supplies.
The
centerpiece of the new life support equipment aboard Endeavour is the water
recovery system, which uses filters and other processes to recycle urine into a
pristine water supply for drinking and technical use.
Station
astronauts currently use just under a gallon of water (3.5 liters) per day,
with just over half of that provided by NASA shuttle's and cargo ships from
Russia and Europe. The remainder is recovered condensate from the interior
atmosphere of the station.
With the
addition of the new waste water recovery system in action, the station would
require less water deliveries from visiting spaceships for six-person crews. If
it performs as advertised, the system could cut the annual delivery water costs
for the station by about 15,000 pounds (6,803 kg) or mass, or about 743 gallons
(2,850 liters), NASA officials have said.
"It's sort
of one of those horrible and fascinating kind of things. It's like, 'You're
going to drink urine?'" said Endeavour astronaut Sandra Magnus, who will help
install the system, then stay aboard to join the station's Expedition 18 crew
to fully test it. "We're not, we're drinking processed water that started as
urine."
People on
Earth drink processed water everyday without knowing it, she added. But the
process is longer, starting in rivers, and running through filtration plants,
faucets or toilets before being filtered once more and put back into the Earth. The steps are shorter in space.
"So the
ick factor is a little bit more in your face," Magnus said. "The water that's
going to be coming out of this water recovery system is going to be pretty
clean. Probably up to some of the highest standards that we have for water in
the United States, if not over that."
Endeavour
mission specialist Don Pettit, who served on the station's Expedition 6 crew in
2002-2003, dubbed the water recovery system a high-tech "coffee maker."
"It turns
yesterday's coffee into today's coffee and, in turn, it makes today's coffee
into tomorrow's coffee," he said in a NASA interview. "It's one of these great,
circle of life things."
Orbital
additions
To support
larger crews, the station also needs new bedrooms and - perhaps more importantly
- a spare bathroom. NASA bought the new $19
million toilet from Russia, which already has one space commode
aboard the station.
"Absolutely
critical to everybody's health and well being in space is to have an operable
toilet," Ferguson said in a NASA interview. "So this gives us an opportunity to
have a spare there."
Endeavour
is also carrying the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, an all-in-one gym
capable of giving astronauts more than 29 different workouts to keep their
muscles strong during the long months living without gravity. A science rack to
allow experiments to study the physics of combustible gases in weightless is
also packed away with other equipment.
The two new
sleep compartments are also vital, though perhaps not spacious. They have about
as much room inside as a large refrigerator, but are built with extra radiation
shielding and hookups for computers and climate control, said Kevin Engelbert,
Endeavour's launch package manager.
The second
ship's galley sports the first-ever refrigerator that astronauts can
use to store or chill food items. To date, the station's kitchenette has
offered astronauts a choice between hot water and lukewarm water for drinks or
food rehydration.
"Mike's
looking forward to just putting drinks in there and just letting them cool
down," said Magnus, referring to station commander Fincke.
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