Sometimes you get more than you bargained for…
The Register tech news site has been a great saviour for me, getting me through many a dull hour at home and work, but I think it has now indirectly made my brain explode.
One of the running stories on the site has been the continuing saga of the International Space Station urine recycling plant, and how it hasn’t been working that well so far. One thing they keep mentioning in the stories is how the station can obtain fresh water at the moment from the space shuttle’s fuel cells while it’s visiting. My curiosity finally got the better of me tonight (might have something to do with having worked at home all day, in combination with Bec beign out tonight for a work function) so I thought I’d do a bit of internet research into this.
The first link I visited, “Fuel Cell Power Plants On The Space Shuttle Orbiter” was more than enough, I think. By the time I got half way through the second page, “For redundancy, there are two thermostatically activated heaters wrapped around the discharge and relief lines to prevent blockage caused by the formation of ice in the lines. Two switches on panel R12, fuel cell H 2 O line htr and H2O relief htr , provide the flight crew with the capability to select either auto A or auto B for the fuel cell water discharge line heaters and the water relief line and vent heaters, respectively”… I knew I was in trouble. Brain. Exploded.
I did keep reading though to see if it changed gear again to something slightly more… er… accessable, but no. I’m not quite sure why I put myself through the last 2 pages at all, except sometimes when you start something you’ve just got to finish, no matter what the pain.
So now I think I knew more than I did earlier in the evening, but I’m not quite sure what, and what use it is unless I get stuck on a shuttle and the yellow fuel stack temp C/W and the backup C/W alarm lights on panel F7 start lighting up.
Kids, you might want to think the whole astronaut thing through a bit more…
P.S. To give you some idea about why I follow the Register, their related headline was: New ISS piss-recycler still troublesome – Sweat and tears only for parched astronauts. Class!