Getting a stomach bug on an international trip is no fun, but getting one in space can result in the loss of invaluable research time.
The International Space Station uses iodine and silver to purify its water, but astronauts only can test the chemical levels via samples sent to Earth on the space shuttle every several months.
To help keep station residents healthy, last month University of Utah researchers sent up a new, two-minute water testing kit that will allow astronauts to test water for iodine and silver levels on a monthly basis. The first test is set for Sept. 22.
"Space missions are getting longer, and with an emphasis on more human exploration of space, the ability to maintain water quality in-flight becomes much more important," said Marc Porter, a USTAR professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the U.
The technology also could be used on Earth to test levels of contaminants such as arsenic, chromium, cadmium and other heavy metals.
Porter started working on a water-quality monitor about 10 years ago, after attending a conference at the Johnson Space Center and deciding it would be "cool" to work on a space-based project. It took about six years to develop a testing kit that would not use the harmful chemicals used on Earth to test water purity.
"We needed to use chemicals that were nonhazardous because if anything gets out of the system in the space station, it floats around and can come into contact with the astronauts," Porter said.
Porter devised a water tester that weighs 1.1 pounds, runs on four AA batteries, and is about the size of a small ice cooler. Astronauts use a syringe to shoot water through a porous disk that is treated with a chemical that interacts with iodine or with silver. The disk is then held up to a device that reads the color of the disk in a couple of seconds and indicates how much of the chemical is in the water.
Too little of each can result in the growth of bacteria in the water that can make astronauts ill. Too much iodine makes the water taste bad and can cause thyroid problems; too much silver can cause skin to turn grayish blue.
To test the process in minimal gravity, Porter scheduled time on one of NASA's "vomit comet" aircraft, which provide about 25 seconds of weightlessness amid steep climbs and drops.
Porter jokes he may have set a record for the number of barf bags he needed on his first flight, so he turned the testing over to his colleague Lorraine Siperko, a U. senior research scientist.
"Having to stay out of the coolest lab on Earth was a bummer," Porter said.
One challenge for researchers: getting air bubbles out of water collected in the syringe without Earth's gravity to pull the liquid to the bottom. On the space station, air bubbles stay suspended in the water.
"We found that one good swing of the arm is enough to send the air to the top of the syringe," Siperko said. "With those confirmations we got on the vomit comet, it should be good to try it on the space station for six months."
The Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative was created by the Utah State Legislature in 1996. It has brought dozens of research scientists to Utah with the goal of creating companies to profit from university research.
Marc Porter came to the University of Utah from Iowa State University two years ago through USTAR.
"We were drawn to Utah because of the opportunity to collaborate with other scientists and to take things we design in a lab and actually get it to work in the commercial marketplace," he said.
