New Water Reclamation System Headed for Duty on Space Station

International Space Station crews soon will have a new water reclamation system that will recycle wastewater, allowing up to six crew members to live aboard the orbiting laboratory.

The latest addition to the station's life support system departs today from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., for final flight preparations, NASA says.

The new Water Recovery System, or WRS, is the second part of a comprehensive life support system for the station. It is scheduled to fly aboard space shuttle Endeavour on STS-126 targeted for later this year. The first part of the system, the Oxygen Generation System, was launched on shuttle Discovery in July 2006. The two systems are part of NASA's Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System, or ECLSS, for the station.

"Recycling will be an essential part of daily life for future astronauts, whether on board the space station or living on the moon," says Mike Suffredini, the station program manager. "Delivering this hardware is an important step in achieving the station's full potential, allowing for additional crew members and more scientific research."

By recycling, the system reduces the dependence on Earth resupply by cutting the amount of water and consumables needed to be launched by about 15,000 pounds, or 6,800 kilograms, a year.

"As early as the late 1960's we knew sustaining life in space would require recycling water and oxygen," says Bob Bagdigian, ECLSS project manager. "A number of us have experienced the entire lifecycle of this technology, all the way from early ideas to implementation. Knowing that we will soon see this system completed, gives us great pride."

Through a series of chemical treatment processes and filters, the Water Recovery System creates water clean enough to drink. In fact, part of the same process has been used in Third World countries to produce drinkable water.

A distillation process is used to recover water from urine. The process occurs within a rotating distillation assembly that compensates for the absence of gravity, aiding in the separation of liquids and gases in space. Once distilled, the water from the urine processor is combined with other wastewaters and delivered to the water processor for treatment.

The water processor removes free gas and solid materials such as hair and lint, before the water goes through a series of filtration beds for further purification. Any remaining organic contaminants and microorganisms are removed by a high-temperature catalytic reaction. These rigorous treatment processes create water that meets stringent purity standards for
human consumption.

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Salad Maker To Pay For E. Coli Research

Fresh Express, a producer of value-added salads in North America, announced that it will provide up to $2 million to fund rigorous and multidisciplinary research to help the fresh-cut produce industry prevent contamination by the deadly Escherichia coli 0157:H7 pathogen, which has caused numerous outbreaks over the past decade, including the recent occurrence related to fresh spinach.

Although no Fresh Express product has ever been shown to have caused an outbreak offood-borne illness, the company is funding -- and, in a unique move, will share this research publicly -- in recognition of the benefits it may achieve for both the industry and consumers alike.

An independent scientific advisory panel comprised of six nationally recognized food safety experts from both federal and state food safety-related agencies and academia has been meeting on a nonpaid, voluntary basis since May 2006 to develop the most productive research priorities related to the source, mode of action and life cycle of E. coli 0157:H7 and the pathogenic contamination of lettuce and leafy greens.

The panel is chaired by Dr. Michael Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H. and director ofthe Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota.

"We are hopeful that this research will yield new knowledge, practices and technologies that the entire fresh-cut produceindustry can use to provide consumers with ready-to-eat produce that is consistently safe and healthy," says Tanios Viviani, president of Fresh Express.

According to Osterholm, the group evaluated the existing body ofknowledge relating to E. coli 0157:H7 contamination in fresh produce and collaborated on the most critical research gaps in fresh produce contamination ranging from growing and harvesting to cooling, transporting, processing and packaging.

"We systematically used our individual areas of expertise to scrutinize the entire supply chain and ultimately uncover the areas where we collectively agreed more research was necessary," says Osterholm. "From this process, the five critical research priorities began to emerge fairly consistently."

The identified research priorities -- and those against which research proposals are being sought -- include:

* Determine the potential for Escherichia coli O157:H7 to be internalized into lettuce or spinach.

* Identify new mitigation strategies and technologies to reduce the potential for E. coli O157:H7 to contaminate leafy green produce.

* Conduct field studies to identify sources, vehicles and factors that affect the degree of contamination or extent of contamination of leafy green produce by E. coli O157:H7.

* Determine the ability of E. coli O157:H7 to multiply in the presence of normal background flora following the harvest of produce such as lettuce or spinach.

* Determine the ability of E. coli O157:H7 to survive composting processes.

Funding is available immediately, and all proposals will be reviewed against guidelines established independently by the scientific advisory panel, the company says. To ensure the highest degree of integrity and value to each phase ofthe research initiative, the panel is empowered, without restriction by Fresh Express, to review proposals, make funding decisions and monitor and disseminate research results, it adds.

Questions regarding proposal submission canbe addressed to Dr. Osterholm at 612-626-6770 or at mto@umn.edu.

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