NASA and Procter & Gamble (P&G) have signed an agreement to develop the first detergent for washing clothes in space 鈥� despite a long-standing recommendation against astronauts doing their own laundry.
While astronauts wear spacesuits when working outside the International Space Station (ISS), they wear ordinary clothes most of the time. Once these are too dirty to be worn, they are then either returned to Earth as rubbish or ejected along with other waste in a capsule to burn up in the atmosphere.
Under the new 聽signed in August, P&G will formulate detergents and systems for cleaning clothing in orbit, which NASA will test. The systems will need to use little to no water, or even utilise the vacuum of space to help shift stubborn stains.
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NASA says it is dedicating more than $111,000 to the project, which potentially includes testing on board the ISS. P&G didn鈥檛 respond to a request for comment before publication.
According to the agreement, innovations developed under the collaboration 鈥渨ill help advance both NASA and P&G goals and missions and will provide additional benefits to humanity鈥�. These could include low-toxicity detergents and reduced water usage in washing machines on Earth, it says.
Clean garments are a precious commodity in space. Historically, astronauts have worn their clothes 鈥渁s long as it is tolerable to the crew based on smell and 鈥榗rustiness鈥�,鈥� according to a . That has typically meant three days for underwear and a week or two for shirts. Clothing accounts for about 6 per cent of the mass flown into space for human missions.
Discarding garments after a single use might seem wasteful, but it makes perfect sense today, says Bergita Ganse, a space researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK and author of . 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just a little washing machine to fly up, the energy it uses and cleaning the water afterwards are big issues. It would also have to be isolated from the rest of the ISS to avoid vibration problems.鈥�
In study after study, NASA has also highlighted such issues. A found that using lightweight clothing could make it more efficient to use disposable clothes for up to a year instead of washable ones. concluded that even a three-year Mars mission could be conducted without a wash day.
Those calculations might change if humans go to space for good, says NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz. 鈥淲e are conducting studies on what a laundry strategy would look like in space, starting with a base on the moon or Mars, where we would benefit from a partial gravity environment.鈥�
Involving a consumer soap company also fits with NASA鈥檚 new focus on commercial partnerships. NASA astronauts are about to film an ad on the ISS for the first time, for an Est茅e Lauder cosmetics product.
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