Have you ever thought about how laundry is done in space?
We hadn’t either until a client brought it up, wondering just how it is that astronauts deal with their dirty clothes in space. Digging into the material, we found that there’s a lot that goes into dealing with laundry, and none of it is what you think.
At the moment, when astronauts go to the International Space Station, they bring clothes for their entire stay with them. With tours lasting up to six months, that can easily add up to 900 pounds of extra weight to the typical space launch! And that’s for only six people.
According to NASA the dirty clothing presents multiple problems.
Where to store the dirty clothes
It’s still 900 pounds of weight
Lint from the clothes can clog filters
The SMELL.
And even though they’ve brought clothing, they can still end up wearing clothes for days on end before they can change. Living in that way can spread germs, which actually multiply faster in space, and makes the astronauts susceptible to getting sick.
Why Can’t They Do Laundry Like Us?
Well, the short answer is that scientists and engineers, for all the amazing problems they /have/ solved, haven’t figured out how yet.
The longer answer is that gravity and how water works doesn’t let them. On Earth water flows and falls to follow gravity until it hits something it can stick to via water tension. In space, while water tension still exists, the water floats around in globules till it hits something. You can imagine that having the water and clothes floating around in your washing machine would make things difficult. Since water weighs so much and costs even more to transport than the clothing, it doesn’t make much budgetary sense to find a way to do laundry. (Water costs $10,000 per pound to get to the ISS! Talk about being worth your weight.)
In order to ensure that they have ‘enough’ clothes astronauts have to wait a week in between changing their underwear and even longer before changing their outer clothes. How long do you think it’ll be before their clothes develop the ability to move on its own do you think?
What Do They Do Then?
At the end of a long day, working out, studying space, and breaking ground for humanity, you want to change into clean clothes. As we’ve discussed though, astronauts only have a limited supply of clean clothes. So what are they supposed to do?
Astronauts have three options as of right now:
They can wear the same clothes again
They can turn it into a fireball (our personal favorite)
Use it to grow plants?
So the first one is the most straight forward. Wake up the next day and wear the same clothes again. Repeat the process until you reach your next ‘clean clothes day’ and really celebrate when you do. Since the ISS is so strictly monitored for temperature, the astronauts don’t sweat much, unless they’re doing their mandated workouts.
Second up is the fireball! The majority of the shuttles that go to the ISS are non-reusable. The Russian Space Program sends up unmanned Progress shuttles that are only good for a one way trip. This means that once they’ve made their trip up, they have to be disposed of in some fashion. What astronauts do is to load all of their trash, including their now (sentient?) clothing into the shuttle and sending it back to Earth. The course they set it on ensures that it burns up in the atmosphere rather than making it back to Earth whole. So the next time you see a shooting star, it might actually be a shooting shuttle?
Last but not least is the curious experiment of one doctor, using his shorts to grow plants. Science Officer Don Pettit wanted to grow plants aboard the Shuttle to see what would happen. Unfortunately he didn’t have any soil. He took what he did have though, which was a pair of folded up underwear and ‘toilet paper’ to make a planter. “The toilet paper isn’t what we think of it consisted of two layers of coarsely woven gauze, 4 by 6 inches in dimension sewn together at the edges with a layer of brown tissue sandwiched in-between.” After solving a problem wherein the seeds were still too cold to germinate, Pettit managed to get both tomato and basil seeds to grow.
If these three methods aren’t appealing, we have to say we understand. Fortunately there are scientists who are looking to find ways to keep astronauts and their clothes cleaner for longer.
If you have other questions about things are done in strange places, you might check out this post from our favorite guest writer Todd, Who In the World Repairs Appliances On A Plane?
Did you learn something new? Do you have more questions? Tell us on Facebook! We’d love to hear from you. If your washing machine here on Earth is busted, or any of your appliances, make an appointment with one of our technicians today. We want to keep your home in tip top shape.