New Israeli technology purifies waste water in orbit and on Earth.
Up till now, waste water from space flights has been dumped into outer space. Sad enough to contemplate Earth’s shrinking water resources (see our post about the Arab world’s water crisis) becoming daily more polluted by industries like the Dead Sea Works. The idea of contaminating outer space with contaminated H2O is, well, a little hard to swallow.
According to water-technology.net, an innovative water purification plan that was recently tested on NASA’s last space shuttle, Atlantis, gives reasonable hope for change. The new polymer system, tested in orbit, successfully removed all bacteria and viruses from water used in flight.
The system is a creation of the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies and Strauss Water, a subsidiary of Israel’s largest food and beverage conglomerate.“It may well be that astronauts, in the not too distant future, won’t have to empty contaminated water into space, but rather use a new Israeli water-purification technology to recycle water,” said Dr. Eran Schenker, Head of the Aerospace Medicine Research Center at Israel’s Fisher Institute.
Good news for astronauts on long space flights. Good news for the environment Out There. And good news for us earth-bound folk, who urgently need a viable system that purifies water even in extreme conditions.
Not thirsty yet? More on water in the Middle East from Green Prophet:
Photo of quasar by f_trudeau via Flickr.
Author: Miriam Kresh
Miriam Kresh is an American ex-pat living in Israel. Her love of Middle Eastern food evolved from close friendships with enthusiastic Moroccan, Tunisian and Turkish home cooks. She owns too many cookbooks and is always planning the next meal. Miriam can be reached at miriam (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
