NASA Wants Fresh Ideas for Recycling Garbage on the Moon

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): With crewed Artemis launches on the horizon, NASA is searching for sustainable solutions for waste management during long-term missions on the moon.  An initiative called LunaRecycle, under the space agency’s Centennial Challenges Program, aims to incentivize the design and development of recycling solutions for use on the surface of the moon and/or inside pressurized lunar habitats. The program aims to reduce solid waste streams during long duration lunar missions under the Artemis Program, as well as to improve the sustainability of future space exploration.

“As NASA prepares for future human space missions, there will be a need to consider how various waste streams, including solid waste, can be minimized as well as how waste can be stored, processed, and recycled in a space environment so that little or no waste will need to be returned to Earth,” according to a contract opportunity for Phase 1 of the LunaRecycle Challenge.

With so many missions heading to the moon, both private and governmental, some scientists argue that humanity has entered a new “lunar anthropocene” marked by an age in which humans are beginning to alter the moon forever. After all, previous crewed moon missions left landers, flags, scientific experiments, golf balls, and even human excrement on the lunar surface.

Courtesy: www.wasteadvantage.com