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The plumbing on the Station must also operate without the assistance of gravity. When building a house on Earth, it's enough to just lay the pipe and then let gravity or the pressure of the city water supply create the flow. In the free fall of Earth orbit, liquids and gases would stay in the pipes and stagnate.
Dave Williams is system manager for Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. He says, "You have to look at the lack of gravity carefully, because normally fluids would just sit there, unless you had the head pressure to force them. In a house, you can count on gravity when you flush a toilet to take that water and put it out in the sewer."
To keep the fluids flowing, the Station's plumbing system includes dozens of pumps and fans that create the pressure needed to keep the liquids and gases moving.
The plumbing must also have a higher level of cleanliness than systems on Earth. The Station system recycles the urine of the crew and laboratory animals and returns the water, purified, to the drinking supply. The health of the crew is of particular concern in space. Like plumbers, there are few doctors nearby! Microbes are a danger even to the Station itself, as shown by the problems on Mir with fungal growth. Keeping microbe levels in the water supply to an absolute minimum is a necessity. The Station's water recycling system results in sterile, contaminant-free water that is much cleaner and safer than the average tap water on Earth.
The free fall environment also places special demands on the design of bathroom and faucet fixtures. Mass-produced fixtures like those found in a typical home won't work on the Station.
"For water faucets, it's a lot different," said Dave. "For getting a drink, we usually keep the drink in a sealed container -- it kind of reminds me of a kid's juice bag or something. You hook the bag up to the dispenser and you select how much you want and hit the button. It dispenses that fixed amount of water and then it will stop. You can't just turn on the faucet and let it go."
The personal hygiene area on the Station looks very different than a bathroom here on the ground. A conventional toilet would not function at all without gravity. The Station uses specialized equipment to meet bodily needs. Two separate machines, using airflow created by suction, are used to help remove feces and urine away from the astronaut.
In time, all of this undoubtedly seems just like home to the crew. And that's the goal of the most far-out plumbing in the solar system -- to work so well that the crew takes it for granted. After all, working in space is a full time job and nobody wants to waste time calling the plumber.