SOS Moon. Missions to explore Earth’s only natural satellite are important and necessary, but they also have a downside that many people are unaware of. This is the enormous amount of waste produced by space missions that is generated by humans.
According to NASA, there are more than 220,000 kilograms of waste scattered on the lunar surface, including equipment left behind, but also nearly 100 bags of human waste that scientists want to bring back to our planet to analyse how it has changed over time. Added to this are faeces, urine, photographs, flags and a long list of other objects that have arrived from Earth. That is why it is time for the LunaRecycle Challenge.
A $3 million project
In anticipation of a new era of space exploration, which is set to leave behind more massive amounts of solid waste, the issue can no longer be postponed, which is why NASA has launched an initiative aimed at finding effective remedies. The LunaRecycle Challenge is a competition designed in collaboration with the University of Alabama and the AI SpaceFactory agency. It aims to design and develop innovations and systems for recycling waste in space.
Becoming a lunar scavenger could be a life-changer, considering that there is a prize of $3 million (approximately €2.7 million) up for grabs. The goal is to reduce the impact of waste on the ground, so ideas are needed for storing, treating and recycling waste directly in space so that less rubbish is brought back to Earth.
Why it is important to clean up the lunar surface
The sustainability plan for space has undergone changes in recent years. In the past, the priority was to reduce the mass and volume of waste, whereas now the aim is to transform it into useful products (such as fertilisers and fuels) to support research, help future astronauts and minimise humanity’s ecological footprint on the Moon. Although the Earth’s satellite is central, NASA’s ambition is to identify technologies that can also solve problems on Earth, perhaps inspiring new approaches and systems to improve waste management.
‘Operating sustainably is important to us as discoverers and researchers; with this challenge, we are looking for innovative approaches to waste management on the Moon, but we aim to bring the lessons learned back to Earth for the benefit of all,’ explains Amy Kaminski, programme executive for NASA’s Prizes, Challenges and Crowdsourcing program.
The MoonRecycle Challenge has two competition tracks: Digital Twin and Prototype Build. In the first case, the challenge involves creating a virtual model of a system capable of recycling waste streams on the lunar surface and producing a final product. In the second case, the focus is on the design and development of hardware and systems to recycle solid waste on the lunar soil. More than in other similar occasions, the hope is that participants will be competitive and skilled in devising effective solutions to remedy a problem that could become a major obstacle to the future of space research.
