In addition to raising these legal and ethical dilemmas, the Apollo waste bags have also inspired interesting scientific questions. How long did those microbes last in bags on the Moon? Did exposure to such unforgiving conditions cause mutations or adaptations? Since all species on Earth are descended from microbes, this line of research would shed new light on the great mysteries of how and where life arises in the universe. The answers to some of the deepest and oldest questions about our place in the cosmos may be waiting in the worn diapers of 55-year-old Neil Armstrong.
“We are this multiplicity,” says Katherine Sammler, a human geographer at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, who has written about waste management in space through the lens of critical social theory. “We bring with us non-human passengers, like microbes and bacteria, as well as our own bodies and the things that go in and out of them. “We have to think about the passengers who come with us and their experience of gravity and radiation on the Moon.” Waste bags would be rich places to conduct research, they add. “What’s there? What’s left?”
In her mission concept, Lupisella proposes answering some of these questions by performing biomolecular sequencing, among other experiments, on excrement samples from Apollo astronauts. These efforts could potentially reveal whether microbes experienced an altered rate of genetic mutations after being marooned on the Moon, which could hypothetically provide an adaptive advantage. Lupisella is also curious whether the microbial spores contained in the bags could revive under the right conditions.
“We already know that life outside of humans is robust and can survive in strange environments, but if the human microbiome can survive in those environments, such as on the Moon, that is an even stronger indicator of how tenacious life can be. life,” says Lupisella. . “It would be another fact that says that it is a little easier to believe that life can exist in many places in the galaxy, the solar system and the universe in general.”
Astronauts have often reported that the number one question they receive from schoolchildren is how they go to the bathroom in space. It is a simple question that exposes a complex and ever-evolving set of challenges, many of which remain unresolved. It is unclear whether we will ever find satisfactory solutions to these problems, but the continued effort to address the legal, ethical, and practical obstacles to waste management in space will also produce benefits here on Earth.
“I’m very excited to work on space issues, because we have the opportunity to do better,” says de Zwart. “We should move forward in a way that is sustainable and responsible. We should think about how to minimize waste. Of course, if you can crack that nut for space, then it will have huge benefits on Earth, so we can help our game here on waste management and disposal.”
For example, billions of people on Earth I do not have access to safe sanitation services, a situation that has driven campaigns to build more innovative toilets and sewage systems. Meanwhile, the growing number of livestock around the world and the billions of tons of feces they produce each year, waste management programs are being tested. Wastewater often pollutes the environment and exposes humans to health risks, including respiratory diseases or waste-related pathogens. Wastewater systems currently contributing greenhouse gas emissions, while the effects of climate change, including extreme weather events such as floods or hurricanes, put further pressure on waste infrastructure.
“Perhaps humanity can avoid the worst effects of global climate change by adopting what even the military-industrial complex determined was absolutely necessary for any spacecraft, namely a bioregenerative life support system,” Munns and Nickelsen say in their book .
“By writing a book about what people have done with their shit in space, we have also written a book that talks about the problem of what people have to do with their shit on Earth,” they conclude.