This is where a bottle of filtered water costs up to a hundred million

A normal person will never pay a price of up to a hundred million dong for a bottle of water, unless he or she is living on the ISS International Space Station.

While one person on Earth just needs to open the door and run to the store to buy water, for the crew on the ISS, the nearest "shop" can be found up to 370km away. In a remote and harsh place like ISS, water has become a luxury commodity. A bottle of water here can be sold for approximately $ 10,000.

Why is this price available?

The reason for the cost of water in ISS is so high because the cost of supplying essential materials up here is extremely expensive.

Picture 1 of This is where a bottle of filtered water costs up to a hundred million
International Space Station.

Each shipment shipped to ISS costs up to several million USD. It is for this reason that the goods here are much more expensive than normal prices and each category must be cost-calculated based on many factors to ensure the value of the value of the currency.

In the beginning, shuttles were regularly sent to space to provide essential goods for ISS at the cost of the program (space shuttle) of up to $ 500 million.

However, now NASA no longer uses a shuttle to send goods to ISS.

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Each shipment will bring up more than 1,500 liters of water to ISS.

Initially, a shuttle was used to supply water to ISS every 2-3 months, each time transporting a series of water bags with a volume of about 40kg.

But when the system becomes more efficient, the agency now only needs to launch a rocket to orbit every 3-6 months. Each shipment will bring up more than 1,500 liters of water to ISS.

But this amount of water is not used entirely for astronauts, but some are put into reserve, in case of uncertainty.

No water is wasted on ISS, including . urine

Instead of relying solely on water supplied by NASA and Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency), ISS has used a range of water collection and recycling systems to supply its astronauts.

Because water is a valuable resource in space, the ISS's water recovery system has recovered moisture from all possible sources on board.

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ISS has used a range of water collection and recycling systems to supply its astronauts.

These sources may be condensed moisture, shower water, oral hygiene water and even the crew's sweat and urine. Even laboratory mice also contribute their urine to recycling water for domestic use.

At this time, the water recovery system was able to acquire 93% of the wastewater on board, while the remaining 7% was lost through air and dust. From the amount of water collected, ISS was able to recycle more than 13.6 liters of water per day.

Although the origin of the recycled water on ISS will make people hesitate to use it, the reality is that this water is even more pure than the water taken from Earth. This strange occurrence is due to the mechanism of recycling water on the ship, which is completely modeled after the cycle of water on Earth (evaporating and becoming rain).

Instead of just purifying water, waste water is collected and removed component atoms, except O (oxygen) and H (Hydro). These two atoms will then be combined to create water. So astronauts will not have any problems drinking this water, although its origin is from sweat and urine.

Technology advances to conquer Mars!

Along with the water reclamation and recycling system on ISS , NASA is also using a method called Sabatier Reaction to produce H-water and CO2 emissions.

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NASA can also produce methane from the Sabatier reaction.

The H gas in this reaction is a by-product of an O-purification system from water. In the past, the amount of H generated after this process will be released into space due to its danger when stored in large quantities. However, this gas is now fully utilized in the Sebatier reactors.

In the future, Sabatier systems will play an extremely important role in the plan to conquer human Mars.

Because Mars is about 225 million kilometers from Earth, astronauts can take between six and nine months to reach the planet. This means they will take up to 18 months until they return to Earth.

It is for this reason that NASA not only focuses on improving the quality of water reclamation and recycling systems, but also focusing on water-making.

According to Margasahayam, NASA can also produce methane from the Sabatier reaction, then combine this gas with the CO2 on Mars to create water on the planet.