As the agency’s explanatory note, quoted by Space.com, put it, “humanity has entered a new ‘lunar Anthropocene’, where one person can even change the Earth’s satellite. And the real challenge is solid waste.”
The waste recycling program involves developing and implementing technologies for the collection, storage, processing and reuse of solid waste. The source writes that there have been numerous public and private missions to the Moon that have sent crews that have left landers, flags, scientific experiment components, golf balls and even human feces on the lunar surface. And all of this will need to be disposed of.
“As NASA prepares for future human spaceflight, it will be necessary to consider ways to minimize various waste streams, including solid waste, as well as ways to store, process, and dispose of waste in space so that little or no waste is returned to Earth,” it writes in its contract application for the first phase of the LunaRecycle Challenge.
Source: Ferra
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