How is oxygen and water recycled while on orbit?
We don’t yet have a closed recycling system. We do partial recycling. Oxygen on the shuttle and the station is not recycled; you have to bring it up with you. Water is partially recycled on the shuttle. We recycle it as waste water because we don’t have any reclamation process. We do take it out of the air and use it for waste water dumps that we use for attitude control and things. On the station, they actually do have a little bit of reclamation ability, and so some of that water gets recycled back into their drinking and use water. But, we don’t have a completely closed system. Every shuttle mission brings water up to the station and helps re-supply their water. Host: Does the station use a similar system to shuttle? Expert: No, not really, for two reasons. One is, the earliest piece of hardware that came up was Russian built, and of course their system is completely different. Conceptually it’s the same, but the details are very different.
