NASA Sends The Most Expensive Toilet For Astronauts On The ISS

Illustration of a rocket launch (doc. NASA)

JAKARTA - NASA has sent a new toilet for astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). The shipment was made using the Northrop Grumman Cygnus shuttle that will launch from NASA's Wallops flight facility in Virginia, USA.

Cygnus aircraft is expected to arrive at the ISS on 4 October. The luggage that will be sent is in the form of research tools and toilets for use by astronauts on the ISS before being used on space missions to the Moon or Mars.

Quoted from the Space page, the delivery of a new toilet called the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) and this research tool will cost 23 million US dollars or around Rp. 343 billion. This means that the toilet for the astronauts on the ISS will be the most expensive toilet in the world sent into space.

"This toilet was designed for exploration and was developed based on the previous space toilet design," said Melissa McKinley, Project Manager for Advanced Exploration Systems Logistics Reduction NASA, in a press conference quoted by Fox News, Thursday, October 1.

According to NASA, sophisticated toilets are equipped with a Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) and a Urine Transfer System (UTS), which can then automate waste management and storage. With this new technology, astronauts can save more time treating waste.

"A key part of this exploration of design is finding ways to optimize mass volume and power use, all of which are important components of spacecraft design," he continued.

Not just toilets, Cygnus will also carry nearly 8,000 pounds of research, crew supplies, and hardware. NASA says that the astronauts on the ISS will be tasked with doing more research with gardening.

One of the plants that will be studied is like a radish to be developed while in space. Where previous experiments the astronauts have grown various types of lettuce and vegetables on the ISS.

Scientists will also use missions to study cancer drugs using microgravity. According to NASA, using microgravity, they can test drugs based on messenger ribonucleic acids (MRNA) to treat leukemia.

MRNA plays a role in the process of making proteins, and can be different in healthy cells versus cancer cells. In normal gravity, the drugs to be tested are onco-selective, meaning they can differentiate cancer cells from healthy ones.