NASA and Tide are working on a long-standing space problem: cleaning astronauts' laundry
With no laundry machines in orbit, International Space Station astronauts cycle through about 160 pounds of clothing per crew member per year, relying on resupply missions to replenish their wardrobes.
And with limited cargo capacity, they're roughing it: ISS astronauts can wear the same pair of underwear for up to a week, NASA reports.
Could resupply missions furnish astronauts with fresh shirts, pants and socks during longer trips to the moon, Mars or other deep-space voyages? Forget it – that's far too costly.
“To do a three-year mission to Mars, it would take about 500 pounds of laundry per astronaut – which is just not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination," said Mark Sivik, a Procter & Gamble research fellow.
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Cincinnati-based P&G and NASA are teaming up to try to develop a high-tech space laundry detergent. An array of experimental formulas were launched Dec. 21 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center.
Sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory, the P&G Telescience Investigation of Detergent Experiments – or PGTIDE – will document stability and performance of detergent enzymes when exposed to microgravity and space radiation.
Why is doing laundry in space so difficult?
Cleaning laundry in space is a longstanding NASA issue. It used to cost $10,000 per pound to launch water, clothing and other payload items into Earth orbit, though SpaceX has greatly lowered this cost.
And everyday used laundry water cannot be recycled aboard the space station, said Bob Dempsey, acting deputy chief scientist for the ISS program. Instead, ISS astronauts ditch their dirty garments onto non-reusable spacecraft that burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
“It's always been a problem. We've never really had a machine up there to clean clothes. We've always just taken it up and disposed of it," Dempsey said.
"For a shuttle mission or an Apollo mission, a few weeks is not that difficult. You’d probably wear your clothes much more than you would like. But it really became a notable problem on Skylab and the International Space Station – when you're up there for six months," he said.
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P&G has developed Tide Infinity, a degradable detergent designed for use in space.
“What we're doing on this experiment is, we actually have nine different detergent formulations. And we have 13 different ingredient components that are separated. And we're going to look at those components and the formulations over a period of time when exposed to space travel for six months," Sivik said.
The detergent components may return to Earth in August for analysis, he said.
After a future launch in April or May, a different arm of PGTIDE research will determine how stain-removal ingredients in Tide To Go pens and wipes perform in space. Sivik said astronauts get coffee stains on their clothing, for example.
NASA researchers hope PGTIDE helps guide the development of detergents for laundering clothing during the Artemis moon missions, as well as for potential Mars or other future space missions.
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Sivik said the ISS research may also help P&G develop detergents for use in regions where water and electrical sources are scarce.
“So this gives up a bit of an option to redefine laundry for the consumers of the future. Not just for space travel, but also here on Earth," Sivik said.
Off-planet laundering scientific challenges include safety with air purification-systems, limited water availability, and purification of laundry wash water back to drinkable water in a closed-loop system.
“You need to have something that's very non-interacting, and that's where the PGTIDE study comes in. Because their detergent will break down and not impact any of the ISS systems," Dempsey said.
"So we can use it to clean some clothes, and it won’t be a problem to any of the humans or the equipment," he said.
Rick Neale is a reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Follow him on Twitter at @RickNeale1