By Dexter Francis De Vera
How do astronauts do laundry in space? They don’t. It’s an extremely tough cleaning challenge. Astronauts, to stay fit, need to work out a couple of hours every day to manage their health. And if you’re working out two to three hours every day, it’s going to be sweaty. They wear their underwear, gym clothes, and everything else until they can’t take the filth and stink anymore, then junk them.
Currently, space clothing is sent to the International Space Station in resupply shipments. Cargo limits, however, make it difficult to ensure astronauts have enough clean clothing to last on missions to deep space. Round-trip missions to Mars, for example, can take two or three years.
Water supply presents another challenge. There is limited water available per load, and cleaning ingredients must be safe so the wash water can still be turned into drinkable water since astronauts are dealing with a closed-loop water system in space.
A new laundry solution could free up cargo space and reduce waste from having to dispose of dirty clothing rather than washing and reusing it.
NASA and Procter & Gamble, the makers of TIDE laundry detergent, are working together to figure it out by developing a fully degradable detergent, specifically designed for use in space to solve malodor, cleanliness, and stain removal problems for washable items used during deep space missions, while being suitable for use in a limited-supply water system.
The NASA and Tide collaboration will be exciting for both because it will push the bounds of resource efficiency to its absolute limit, uncovering learnings with practical applications for both the future of laundry in space and here on Earth. The best solutions come from the most diverse teams and how more diverse can it be than Tide and NASA.
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