Astronauts are also human beings, and even the best people must eat and drink Lasa. In order to allow astronauts to stay on the space station for a long time, it is necessary to have a very complete life support system, provide food, water, oxygen and other resources needed for astronauts to survive and live, and also collect and process urine, feces, carbon dioxide and so on metabolized by astronauts.
This is a very important problem, if not solved, astronauts in space life will become very painful.
According to Yang Hong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the chief designer of the Space Station system of the Chinese Manned Space Project, and a researcher of the China Academy of Space Technology, the core capsule of the Tianhe space station, which has been successfully in the sky and has been operating normally for nearly a year, has a very excellent and efficient wastewater and waste gas recovery and treatment system.
Up to now, the Tianhe core module has completed the rendezvous and docking with the two manned spacecraft of Shenzhou 12 and Shenzhou 13, as well as the two cargo spacecraft of Tianzhou 2 and Tianzhou 3, of which the Shenzhou 12 crew stayed here for 3 months and shenzhou 13 stayed for 6 months.
Every time the astronauts enter the space station, they will use the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft to transport the supplies to the space station in advance. According to the plan, the Tianzhou 4 cargo spacecraft is expected to launch in May, and shenzhou 14 is launched in June. Shenzhou 14 is also carrying three astronauts, and like Shenzhou 13, they will also stay on the space station for half a year.
Astronauts can stay so long, in addition to the abundant supply of materials on the space station, but also because the Tianhe core module has an excellent life-sustaining system, which can ensure that the astronauts of the mainland can comfortably stay in space.
The space station is a closed system that isolates astronauts from the harsh environment in space. In order to maintain a good cabin environment, the collection system in the core module of Tianhe will not only collect the exhaust gases such as carbon dioxide emitted by astronauts, but also the moisture emitted by astronauts will be collected, and everything done is only to ensure that the air in the cabin is suitable for astronauts to survive.
In order to maintain normal physiological metabolism, the human body must consume a certain amount of water every day, and excretion is also necessary after drinking. The main component of urine excreted by the human body is water. There is a lot of water on Earth, but when it appears in some water-scarce environments, such as deserts and space stations, it becomes extremely precious.
The cost of sending people and goods into space is extremely high, and it takes a lot of money to send only 1 kilogram of materials to space. Many countries do not have the ability to develop the space industry, in addition to the technology is not good, there is another important reason is that the economic volume can not support.
For the sake of accounting, all the water on the space station, including the urine excreted by the astronauts, will be recycled. After high-purity purification, drinking water can be extracted from it, or the water can be electrolyzed to generate oxygen for astronauts to breathe. According to reports, the recycling efficiency of water in the core cabin of the Tianhe is more than 95%, while the overall water utilization rate has reached more than 83%.
Urine turns into drinking water, and it is difficult for most people to accept it again. In fact, the purified water on the space station is cleaner and more hygienic than bottled water, but many people are difficult to cross the psychological barrier.
The recycling of water and other resources reduces the transportation cost and pressure of cargo spacecraft, and reduces the demand for resources and the rate of consumption on the space station. Whether it is the continental space station or the International Space Station, a large part of the oxygen and water that astronauts breathe and drink now comes from recycling. As long as the power supply on the space station is sufficient, this cycle can be repeated for a long time.
As for the feces, at this stage, it is only dried and compressed and packed, so that it can fall back to the ground. In the future, if humans need to travel ultra-long distances, and need to stay in space for years or even decades, then feces must also be recycled.
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