WEE HAVE LIFT OFF
Scot invents pants to help bursting astronauts
A SCOTS designer has won a £4000 prize from Nasa for inventing pants astronauts can poo and pee in.
Space travellers usually have to rely on adult-sized nappies but Hugo Shelley, from Pittenweem, Fife, could change all that with his swimsuit concept pants.
He made the top three – out of 19,000 entries – in a competition by the US space agency to develop a system capable of gathering human waste for up to six days.
The wearable device had to route the waste away from an astronaut’s body and work in “microgravity” conditions where solids and fluids can float.
Hugo said: “It’s incredibly exciting. Even if Nasa only take a fragment of the idea I’ve put forward in what they go on to develop, that will be enough.
“In a way it’s almost like being in space. Not quite but almost.”
Hugo’s hi-tech pants include a catheter and a mechanism which compresses, seals and sanitises solid waste.
He said: “Something bulky with a lot of mechanics and material was really out of the question.
“The solution uses a lot of smart materials as well as form-fitting mechanisms. It’s all fairly flexible and comfortable to wear which is important in high-stress situations such as launches.”
Nasa’s Orion mission, which is scheduled to launch in the early 2020s, is expected to incorporate a waste disposal system in spacesuits for the first time.
Nasa’s Kirstyn Johnson was delighted with the response to their Space Poop Challenge.
She said: “We’ll be able to use aspects of the winning designs to develop future waste management systems for use in the suit.”
Hugo was third in the contest, which was won by Thatcher Cardon, a US air force medical commander from Texas.