laundry equipment for Mars mission?

[alanh_27@yahoo.com]

My understanding is, that up till today, no laundry has ever been done
in manned spaceflight.

Presumeably this would need to change for a Mars manned flight.

I believe the requirements are...

1. method for removing soil from clothing
2. method for restoring clothes to wearable condition
(e.g., dry them)
3. method for disposing of soil (eg, throw dirty water
overboard? throw dirty water filters overboard?


What is the optimal equipment configuration?

Bosch has a robotic shirt-ironer, by the way....

[Ian Woollard]

alanh_27@yahoo.com wrote:
> My understanding is, that up till today, no laundry has ever been done
> in manned spaceflight.

That's not correct. They do laundry on the ISS.

The equipment includes laundry detergent and a plastic bag. It is done
by hand.

It is "hung up" (for want of a better phrase, in zero-g) afterwards to dry.

[Sir Charles W. Shults III]

<alanh_27@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115006905.579827.252730@z14g2000cwz.googlegr oups.com...
> My understanding is, that up till today, no laundry has ever been done
> in manned spaceflight.
>

Experiments have been done using ultrasonics and special cleaning agents
that might be the answer. Dirty water would be recycled, possibly using
vacuum distillation as part of the process. The recovered dirt and cleaner
would be the consumable portion and that might be thrown away.
There was even a spate of commercial ultrasonic washing machines for a
while as a result of this research.

Cheers!

Sir Charles W. Shults III, K. B. B.
Xenotech Research
321-206-1840

[K, T, E & N]

Best way to look for a solution: Use no water. Liquids are too heavy to
carry and launch (though if water is a by-product from some other system
could use that). Biodegradable chemicals. No off gassing. Recycle.
Clothes don't get wet no need to dry. Nothing to throw away.

Kim


<alanh_27@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1115006905.579827.252730@z14g2000cwz.googlegr oups.com...
> My understanding is, that up till today, no laundry has ever been done
> in manned spaceflight.
>
> Presumeably this would need to change for a Mars manned flight.
>
> I believe the requirements are...
>
> 1. method for removing soil from clothing
> 2. method for restoring clothes to wearable condition
> (e.g., dry them)
> 3. method for disposing of soil (eg, throw dirty water
> overboard? throw dirty water filters overboard?
>
>
> What is the optimal equipment configuration?
>
> Bosch has a robotic shirt-ironer, by the way....
>

[Tom Clarke]

alanh...@yahoo.com wrote:
> My understanding is, that up till today, no laundry has ever been
done
> in manned spaceflight.

Somewhere I came across the idea of having the astronauts
go nude. Might take a little higher cabin temp, but that
should not be a problem on Earth-Mars trip.

Of course TV broadcasts would require having a few
"dress uniforms" on hand.

Tom

[Jim Kingdon]

> That's not correct. They do laundry on the ISS.
>
> The equipment includes laundry detergent and a plastic bag. It is done
> by hand.

Hmm, I found one reference to this. It doesn't seem to be done often
(I'm not sure what you'd do with the dirty water from the plastic
bag).

But you are right, it has been done.

. . .
As a result, astronauts have to stretch out how long they wear the
underwear that they can take with them. They must make sure they will
have underwear during their whole stay.
. . .
Commander Bowersox has even figured out a way to wash his shorts on
the ISS. He uses a plastic bag!
. . .
Once it is there and the Station crew has unloaded the supplies, the
Progress is then loaded up with trash. This includes dirty laundry.
. . .

http://www.nasaexplores.com/show2_5_8a.php?id=03-026&gl=58

[Carey Sublette]

"K, T, E & N" <junk@hywaay.net.retro.com> wrote in message
news:117imb2cl7bv7e0@corp.supernews.com...
> Best way to look for a solution: Use no water. Liquids are too heavy to
> carry and launch (though if water is a by-product from some other system
> could use that). Biodegradable chemicals. No off gassing. Recycle.
> Clothes don't get wet no need to dry. Nothing to throw away.
>
> Kim

The astronauts' metabolism will produce about 2500 kg of water during the
mission, so there will be a source of water.

But an attractive possibility for laundry in space might be dry cleaning
using supercritical carbon dioxide. Problems of dealing with traditional
solvents would be eliminated, and the fabric emerges perfectly dry.

http://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/People/CMR/moreco2.html

http://www.pprc.org/pprc/rpd/statefnd/turi/supercri.html

Carey Sublette

[snidely]

Tom Clarke wrote:
[...]
> Somewhere I came across the idea of having the astronauts
> go nude. Might take a little higher cabin temp, but that
> should not be a problem on Earth-Mars trip.
>
> Of course TV broadcasts would require having a few
> "dress uniforms" on hand.
>

Well, there are sanitary reasons for considering at least minimal
clothing, not to mention protecting the skin from the item being worked
on (tool slippage, hot liquid splahes, abrasin, etc).

It would also be interesting to be able to qunatify how much the
clothing reduces dispersal of dead skin cells and loose hair shafts.
We might end up asking them to wear watch caps in addition to uniforms!

/dps