Imagine that you are on average 20 billion km from Earth. Of course your only concern what to do with your dirty laundry but after a while it starts to become your living space and you feel some needs.

Even when we go on vacation for a few days, we have trouble packing our things, and we ask the astronauts who spend months in a spaceship. In a 6-month trip, they have to carry 540 pairs of underwear, store dirt or even dirt so that one clean pair of underwear is enough. launches into orbit should have.

How astronauts solve the washing problem in space

In fact, the clothes on the space station are just as good as on Earth. does not get dirty quickly. Astronauts live in a controlled environment. This keeps the temperature at a constant and comfortable level.

Also everything around them almost weightless They do not perform difficult physical movements as with Earth’s gravity. Still, astronauts regularly do small exercises to keep their bodies from shrivelling. Despite all this, their clothes naturally get dirty after a while. The solutions to this situation are as follows:

Wearing the same underwear for a long time.

According to the astronauts’ information, they wore the same underwear. about 1 week they wear. Some of them even did not change their clothes, such as pants and shorts, for 3 months.

According to Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox, a plastic bag He even found a way to wash his shorts

Launch into space like a shooting star.

According to the Russian space agency, the crew must have enough food, water and other supplies to be able to stay in space for a while. to transport these substances. unmanned advance ships It is launched into space along with the crew. The dirty laundry of the astronauts can also remain in this ship.

Growing plants with dirty laundry.

Science Officer Pettit tries to grow tomato and basil seeds at the station. when you decide had a problem. Since there was no soil, he had to find another way to grow the plants. Pettit wrote in his book Space Chronicles:

“I need a spherical core to build my seeder. An old underwear worked. At the station we have enough material to change our underwear maybe every 3-4 days. Find some nutrients, fold an old underwear into a sphere and sew it in place with a few well-placed needle and thread stitches from our kit.

Pettit is too strong for seeds to germinate. to stay cold After solving a problem it caused, within 2 days it germinated seeds in the seeder consisting of underwear and toilet paper.

Feed the bacteria.

This isn’t really an option right now, but it could be in the future. While the Mir station was still in orbit, Russian scientists spent months at the station. store dirty underwear They were working on a new solution to the problem.

Scientists began designing a system that would use bacteria to digest the astronaut’s cotton and paper underwear. Researchers find what happens when bacteria eat underwear methane gas He even said it could be used to power spacecraft.

The system can even be used to get rid of other waste in the station. While the system was never finalized for use on Mir (the researchers said it could take up to a decade to find the right combination of bacteria), in the future people living in space maybe an option for that

• Sources: NASA, BBC