🚀 go-pugleaf

DonH <donlhumphries@bigpond.com> wrote:
> Well, if science can split the atom (nuclear power), this should be a cinch.
>   There was a TV doco on SBS last night, about evolution of the submarine, 
> and the modern nuclear-powered sub solves its oxygen supply problem by 
> electrolysis of sea water.
>   How do astronauts in the space station recycle their air?
>   Presumably, it involves reduction of carbon dioxide back into carbon and 
> oxygen.
>   By photosynthesis?  Or, electrolysis of "dry ice"? 

Nova has done a couple programs on this.

Short missions usually don't bother with recycling -- some of the liquid O2 is
used to make "air" and CO2 and some other dangerous chemicals are
scrubbed out with absorbers or filters; some waste is just vented.

In the space station solar power is the basis for a more comprehensive
recycle scheme. O2 is generated from elocrolysis. The hydrogen is
vented. There are plants to use it later to make methane and water
from atm CO2 and H to partly replace the water that's used to make O2.

There are a range of nasty substances long-libed missions accumulate --
acetone, carbon monoxide and methyl alcohol. These have to be scrubbed out.

The "recycle" even in the near future will be nowhere near perfect and 
supplies from the ground are needed to replaced "full" filters
and replace O2, water and other requisites that leak out of the system
(or just collect places it's not easy to get them out of).

-- 
Another problem that has to be taken seriously is a slow rise of sea level
which could become catastrophic if it continues to accelerate. We have
accurate measurements of sea level going back 200 years. We observe a
steady rise from 1800 to the present, with an acceleration during the last
50 years. It is widely believed that the recent acceleration is due to
human activities, since it coincides in time with the rapid increase of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere.
  -- Freeman Dyson, "Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the

Professor Freeman Dyson, World Renowned "Heir To Einstein" Physicist
  -- BONZO@27-32-240-172 [daily and sometimes hourly nyms], 27 Feb 2011 12:50 +1100