{"id":37275,"date":"2011-07-24T15:43:25","date_gmt":"2011-07-24T15:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/nasa-taps-into-students-water-recycling-design\/"},"modified":"2011-07-24T15:43:25","modified_gmt":"2011-07-24T15:43:25","slug":"nasa-taps-into-students-water-recycling-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/space-station\/nasa-taps-into-students-water-recycling-design.php","title":{"rendered":"NASA Taps Into Students’ Water Recycling Design"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fifteen-hundred hours, 62 days, nine weeks, or two months -- any way you look at it, a group of Wisconsin middle school students spent a lot of time working on a winning project for NASA's 2011 Waste Limitation, Management and Recycling (WLMR) Design Challenge. <\/p>

From October 2010 to May 2011, Katelyn, Brianna, Amy, Julia and Maeve, along with their mentor, Christopher Deleon, worked through lunch and after school to develop a highly advanced water recycling system.<\/p>

They were all good students, but I think they went to a whole other level with this project,\" Deleon said of the five girls.<\/p>

WLMR challenged fifth- through eighth-grade students nationwide to design and test a water recycling system that could be used in space. The reason: It's really expensive to transport critical supplies to destinations beyond Earth's atmosphere, so sustainability is the key to affordability for NASA's future expeditions. <\/p>

Twenty-five teams submitted a final design, tested their systems on a simulated wastewater stream and reported results to a NASA panel comprised of three subject matter experts and three professional educators. Team QNA's Michael Roberts, a lead for Sustainable Systems Research at Kennedy, said the panel was looking for an innovative design that could function in space for long periods of time without the need for a lot of energy or re-supply.<\/p>

Called \"Aqua De Vida,\" which means \"water of life\" or \"the fountain of youth,\" the winning team concocted a closed-loop water recycling system design that uses multi-stage filtration, biological treatment and distillation to mimic water recovery on Earth. Their design uses gravity to sieve wastewater through a sand and gravel filter, then through an activated charcoal filter. Filtered water then flows into a biofiltration pond containing bacteria to break down ammonia and Spirulina, a carbon-absorbing and protein-rich, edible cyanobacteria, formerly called blue-green algae. From there, the water trickles into a distillation chamber, where it vaporizes and condenses into drinkable water. <\/p>

\"We all had our own ideas and bringing those together was a challenge,\" Brianna said. \"We really learned to work as a team.\" <\/p>

Julia said this solution-seeking project has helped her realize that she would like to be a doctor someday. This solution involved more than just quantity, though; the teammates also had to test the quality of their finished product. To do so, they used a pH test kit, ammonia tester and conductivity meter to determine the number of impurities and nutrients in their filtered water.<\/p>

\"They spent a lot of time researching, building and testing,\"Deleon said. \"I think this was a great learning experience for them to acknowledge that if they put their minds to something, anything is possible.\"<\/p>

Part of their kudos for a job well-done included a trip to Kennedy Space Center, where they toured the Space Station Processing Facility, the Vehicle Assembly Building, Orbiter Processing Facility-2, Launch Pad 39A, where space shuttle Atlantis awaits its STS-135 launch, and the Space Life Sciences Lab. They also toured the Indian River Lagoon on a boat and met with NASA scientists and engineers to discuss their design and learn about other sustainability challenges the agency is working to conquer.<\/p>

\"I think our design can help outside of the space industry, too,\" said Amy after meeting with Kennedy employees, \"Maybe in disaster-stricken areas, like Japan where a tsunami just hit.\"<\/p>

Even though Aqua De Vida's system seems complex and is quite bulky, taking up about 8 feet of real estate on the ground, the team says its design can be scaled down for easier transport. <\/p>

The possibilities don't end there. The system eventually could help boost the immune systems of astronauts on long-duration missions. That's something that could benefit Maeve years from now if she decides to transition from her chosen career path of a member of the Marine Corps to the Astronaut Corps.<\/p>

\"Some of the algae that we used really helps with preventing radiation sickness, or treating it,\" said Katelyn, who now is considering a career in engineering.<\/p>

\"This NASA middle school opportunity meets science, technology, engineering and mathematics content standards while challenging students to participate in the real-world integrated, multidisciplinary environment critical to the next generation of scientists and engineers,\" said Cheryl Johnson Thornton, lead of Kennedy's Informal Education. <\/p>

Other upcoming educational challenges, initiatives and opportunities include an art contest, Student Launch Initiative, One Stop Shopping Initiative, DIME Microgravity Challenge, HAM Radio for International Space Station and a MooonBuggy race.<\/p>

For more information visit http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/offices\/education\/centers\/kennedy\/home\/WLMR.html<\/a><\/p>

\"\"<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifteen-hundred hours, 62 days, nine weeks, or two months -- any way you look at it, a group of Wisconsin middle school students spent a lot of time working on a winning project for NASA's 2011 Waste Limitation, Management and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-station"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}