NASA awarded five people on Wednesday for their ideas to solve one of astronauts’ biggest problems: pooping in a spacesuit.
The honors came after the space agency, along with crowdsourcing platform HeroX, launched the Space Poop Challenge last October — a competition that asked the world to submit sanitary solutions for suits astronauts to wear up to 144 hours. More than 5,000 ideas were submitted by about 19,000 people.
“The response to the Space Poop Challenge exceeded all of our expectations,” Steve Rader, NASA Tournament Lab Deputy Director, said in a statement. “The level of participation and interest went far beyond what we expected for such a short competition.”
The guidelines were simple — the spacesuit has to be able to collect waste for up to six days and offer a healthy, hands-free way to move the excrement from the body.
Astronauts can be stuck in their suits for up to 10 hours at a time or longer — up to six days — if something goes wrong. Currently, astronauts use what’s known as the Extravehicular Mobility Unit to relieve themselves while on spacewalks. The apparatus — basically a diaper — was first worn by astronauts on the STS-6 mission, the sixth space shuttle mission, in 1983.
Colonel Thatcher R. Cardon, a commander at Laughlin Airforce Base in Texas, was the contest’s first-place winner — a prize of $15,000 — for his design, the MACES Perineal Access & Toileting System.
The design features a hygienic wand covered with toilet paper-like fabric and underwear similar to a maxi pad.
“I packed up the family, and we drove around Del Rio, Texas, to dollar stores, thrift stores, craft stores, clothing and hardware stores to get materials for mock-ups,” Cordon, a family physician and flight surgeon, said in a statement.
A trio of doctors, who called themselves the Space Poop Unification of Doctors, came in second, winning $10,000. The thee friends, who studied chemical engineering together during undergrad, designed what they called the Air-Powered Urine and Stool Handling, or Air-PUSH, system — which manages to dry and disinfect the poop before removing it from the spacesuit.
Coming in third was Hugo Shelly, the founder of a London design and prototyping company. Shelly, who won $5,000, named his design the SWIMSuit-Zero Gravity Underwear for 6-Day Use.
NASA isn’t taking the winners’ exact creations, but will use them to help design the suit that will, hopefully, be worn by astronauts on the upcoming Orion mission.
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