Nasa has long promoted its core pillars of transparency, openness and scientific integrity – and that apparently stretches to sharing information about when astronauts pee.
An analyst investigating government systems for security risks stumbled across a long-forgotten data feed direct from the International Space Station which tells those on the ground how full the facility’s urine tank is – enabling them to track when astronauts use the toilet. Should they wish to.
The anonymous analyst, who goes by the name Gi7w0rm, found this and the status of the processor unit that converts urine into drinking water for astronauts were among hundreds of metrics available online.
Other data available includes CO2 levels inside the ISS, cabin temperature – a comfortable 23C – airlock pressure, and how many laptops are hooked up to the station network.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk’s sister publication New Scientist, Gi7w0rm said they were ‘not necessarily surprised, but definitely amused, by the finding, adding ‘you don’t always get to watch astronauts pee’.
The cybersecurity analyst said they had been investigating a ‘sensitive’ government system when coming across the feed and flagged it as a potential security breach.
‘The last month, I have created probably over 250 voluntary reports to big companies and nation states in regards to critical vulnerabilities,’ said Gi7w0rm. ‘This included everything from the average business to military contractors, governments, police and critical infrastructure. In this particular case, I was looking for vulnerabilities in relation to space.’
New Scientist contacted Nasa for comment, but a systems engineer at Boeing said the feed was an obsolete tool from the now-defunct ISSlive website.
‘At some point, the original project was abandoned, but the telemetry stream lived on,’ said engineer Tristan Moody. ‘It’s been publicly available since somewhere around 2011, as I recall. The data available is a very small subset of the thousands of telemetry channels used by the ISS, but it’s interesting nonetheless.’
However, the old feed probably isn’t telling us the full picture when it comes to astronauts and their pee.
Earlier this year Nasa announced that advances in on-board technology now means that 98% of astronaut’s urine – and sweat – is now recycled into potable, or drinkable, water.
The change represented a huge leap forward in the potential for long-duration space missions, during which there will only be limited space for water – meaning recycling will be a must.
‘This is a very important step forward in the evolution of life support systems,’ said Christopher Brown, part of the team that manages the space station’s life support system.
‘Let’s say you collect 100 pounds of water on the station. You lose two pounds of that and the other 98% just keeps going around and around. Keeping that running is a pretty awesome achievement.’
The team acknowledged that the idea of drinking recycled urine might make some people squeamish, but stressed that the end result is far superior to what municipal water systems produce back on Earth.
‘The processing is fundamentally similar to some terrestrial water distribution systems, just done in microgravity,’ said Jill Williamson, ECLSS water subsystems manager.
‘The crew is not drinking urine; they are drinking water that has been reclaimed, filtered, and cleaned such that it is cleaner than what we drink here on Earth.’
Well, that’s good to hear.
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