Using the Outhouse to Build the Moonhouse
The Journal of Cleaner Production had an article on using astronauts’ urine to construct a lunar concrete to build moonbases without the expense and logistical complications of shipping water or pre-fab constructions to the Moon if/when we return. With Corona virus, everything is on hold these days.
I attempted to write an article on this for Krypton Radio, as a break from obituaries. (As Morbid Minx, I have the dubious distinction of being the obituary specialist for KR.) e. g., Katherine Johnson.
I learned two new vocabulary words today: Regolith and Urea.
Regolith, my boss said, is the rocky outer shell of any rocky planet or planetoid body. I misunderstood it as moondust, and misused it thus in my article, but my editor corrected me. You can’t help but love a man who rescues you from your own mistakes and pays you. Underpays, but nobody’s perfect.
Urea, according to Google, is a “colorless crystalline compound which is the main nitrogenous breakdown product of protein metabolism in mammals and is excreted in urine.” It is the second most abundant component in urine (after water), and thus it is readily available anywhere there are humans. Remember the episode of Blackadder where Good Queen Bess sent Blackadder to sea, and he was reduced to drinking Baldrick’s urine?
“We have therefore explored the possibility of utilizing urea as a chemical admixture for lunar geopolymers. Addition of urea has been compared with polycarboxylate and naphthalene based superplasticizers, and with a control mixture without superplasticizer. When curing the sample containing urea at 80 °C, the initial setting time became longer. The samples containing urea or naphthalene-based superplasticizers could bear heavy weights shortly after mixing, while keeping an almost stable shape. Samples without superplasticizer or containing the polycarboxylate-based admixture were too stiff for mold-shaped formation after casting. Samples containing urea and naphthalene-based admixtures could be used to build up a structure without any noticeable deformation. Initial compressive strength of the samples with urea was higher than for the two other specimens containing superplasticizers, and it continued to rise even after 8 freeze-thaw cycles. Microstructural studies revealed that superplasticizers can influence the formation of additional air voids within the samples.”
Professor Anna-Lena Kjøniksen of Østfold University College in Norway admitted, “We have not yet investigated how the urea would be extracted from the urine, as we are assessing whether this would really be necessary, because perhaps its other components could also be used to form the geopolymer concrete.”
Although the thought of combining urine and moondust to build moonbases puts one in mind of schoolboy humor, like Ron Weasley in astronomy class asking Lavender (or was it one of the Patil twins?) “can I see Uranus?”, I can’t help but think — as a Darrell-nominated SFFH (science fiction/fantasy/horror) author — that there must be a way to get an SF story out of this. Especially since humor-based SF anthology Unidentified Funny Object opens to submissions today.
No story ideas pop to mind. However, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this poem:
When nature is calling, plain speaking is out
When the Ladies, God Bless'em are milling about
You may pee-wee, make water, or empty the glass
You can powder your nose, even Johnny may pass
Shake the dew off the Lily; see a man about a dog
When every ones soused, it's condensing the fog
But please to remember, if you would know bliss
That only in Shakespeare do characters piss.From "Ode to the Four Letter Word," author unknown.
