Humans will return to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. The deadline is approaching, but NASA still hasn’t solved a major problem: what will be done with their excrement there?
The deadline is approaching: the return of American astronauts to the Moon is scheduled for 2026. But what will be done with their excrement there? The question may raise a smile, but it is absolutely not insignificant. In an article published on June 25, 2024, Wired points out that the issue of excrement on the Moon is a real challenge for which NASA still has no solution, while time is running out.
The subject is certainly not new. The Apollo program, which ended in 1972, ended by leaving 96 bags of waste on the Moon, including the urine and excrement of lunar explorers. It might even be relevant to take advantage of new explorations to go and collect these human excrements on the Moon.
Bags of excrement on the moon? A solution that is no longer valid
But what about the excrement during future missions of the Artemis program? Since the goal is to permanently return humans to the Moon, the solution of trash bags thrown on the surface seems to be a thing of the past. NASA will not be able to avoid the thorny issue of disposing of its crews’ excrement.
« If humans are going to live permanently on the Moon, there shouldn’t be bags of poop lying aroundconfirms space law researcher Melissa de Zwart to Wired. It is a danger [ndlr : car cela reste de la matière organique dans un environnement extraterrestre]. It’s unsightly. It’s not what we want to do. So the question is what environmental standards will we apply. We don’t have any strict rules at the moment.. »
« You shouldn’t have poop bags lying around [sur la Lune]. »
Melissa de Zwart, space law specialist
The question must be addressed all the more since we already know that doing one’s business in space is nothing like what happens on Earth. Astronauts sometimes tell us that practicing urinating or defecating is part of their preparation for the great weightless voyage (not to mention intestinal enemas). In space, we can no longer rely on Earth’s gravity to make excrement fall into the toilets. In the International Space Station, toilets exist, but they are quite different from those we know. However, this type of space toilet, operating in Earth’s microgravity, will not be suitable for going to the Moon either. We will therefore have to reinvent space toilets.
A reflection has indeed been started to imagine the toilets of future lunar explorers, but for the moment, it does not seem to have resulted in a concrete and satisfactory project from the point of view of the elimination of materials. However, a solution will have to be found, because covering the Moon with bags of human excrement will not be sustainable in the long term.
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