For 50 years the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston has routinely created technology to enable the quest for space exploration. From Gemini to Apollo to the space shuttle, the center has provided breakthroughs to support NASA’s space missions.

But now NASA has taken a step back. The last shuttle mission took place earlier this year, and other than supporting the International Space Station along with 15 other countries, most of the work at the JSC is looking further into the future, perhaps at deeper manned space flights that are years away from liftoff.

Although thousands have been laid off post-shuttle, the JSC is not closing its doors. In fact, it is opening them – to industries like oil and gas.

Industry collaboration

Recently the JSC formed the Strategic Opportunities and Partnership Development Office (SOPD) to showcase its R&D capabilities in hopes that other industries will come to the center to partner in research projects or work on similar problems. While some NASA astronauts are accustomed to working in a vacuum, this approach is less successful in R&D.

“No one advances technology or commercializes it without some form of collaboration,” said Yolanda Marshall, SOPD manager. “We would never have gone to the moon without our contractors, and what we’ve learned in space has a lot of uses here on Earth.”

The JSC has been charged with a 14-tier “technology roadmap” to help further understanding of such challenges as power and energy storage, robotics, sensor systems, and nanotechnology (Nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html). With that outline as a guide, Marshall said, JSC officials decided to partner with industry as well as academia and government to have resources, both intellectual and collaborative, to further this research.

“We examined our capabilities and picked five industries with which to collaborate, including oil and gas, medical, and transportation,” she said. “It wasn’t an arbitrary thing – we want that synergy. We looked for industries with areas of common interest where we thought both sides would benefit from working together.”

What JSC brings to the table, in addition to some very intelligent people, is a fantastic campus in which, over the years, space technologies were developed that have affected the lives of nearly everyone on earth. Already the center is conducting research into battery technologies, hydrogen and methane storage, membrane-based water purification systems, petroleum deposit survey and evaluation, and improved ground-penetrating radar, among other energy-related projects. Two of its facilities have exciting potential for further E&P research, Marshall said – the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) and the Advanced Water Recovery Systems Development Facility (AWRSDF).

An astronaut prepares to be lowered into the water at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. (Images courtesy of NASA)

NBL

The NBL is used to train astronauts for extravehicular activities (EVAs). Shuttle astronauts performed hundreds of EVAs during the program’s existence, and it was important to accustom them to the feeling of being weightless for several hours at a time.

Tied by the Earth’s gravity, astronauts can only experience weightlessness in two ways – hurtling vertically downward in a jet (affectionately known as the “vomit comet”) or training at the NBL. As one might suspect, the latter involves a very large pool (holding 6.2 million gallons of water) that is deep enough to house a mockup of the shuttle’s and space station’s exteriors to practice EVAs.

The astronauts perform their training in their space suits minus the electronics. The suits are pressured and weighted to ensure neutral buoyancy so that the astronauts do not float up and down in the water column. Divers are on hand at all times to assist in the training, and audio and video monitors allow technicians in the control room to monitor progress.

The NBL still trains astronauts for EVAs on the space station, but Robert Durkin, chief of the NBL, said he and his staff are mostly in maintenance mode. “With the end of the shuttle program, there will be fewer EVAs,” he said. “So to maintain this facility, we’re looking toward external customers to offset the cost. It’s the next chapter.”

In addition to the pool, the facility houses a control room, communication systems, closed-circuit TVs, a light manufacturing facility, overhead cranes, a water treatment system, and breathing gas. Potential commercial uses include offshore safety and survival training, underwater training, public safety diver training, blackout environment simulation, engineering verification, space flight testing and training, video documentation and film production, human factor performance, robotic vehicle testing and prototyping, and hardware mockup.

Divers assist an astronaut during training.

AWRSDF

Water is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity, and any technology that can stretch its use is worth pursuing. On the space station, water recovery and reuse is so efficient that 85% of used water can be recycled to a clean enough state that it is drinkable.

There are effectively three waste streams on board a space vessel – urine; wastewater from showers, sinks, etc., which typically have surfactants; and solid waste. Forward osmosis/reverse osmosis technology is an emerging technology being studied to recycle the water streams.

In forward osmosis, soapy wastewater is transferred across a membrane into a salty brine using little energy. The membrane captures the soap particles, and the salty water is then processed through reverse osmosis, recovering the clean water.

According to a test facilities guide, the AWRSDF is a facility for all types of spacecraft water recovery systems, including wastewater stabilization, primary processor technologies, brine water recovery, post-processors, water filtration, and personal hygiene. Within the lab is a Biosafety Level 2 microbiology lab where advanced potable water disinfection technologies are tested.

To support wastewater testing, the AWRSDF also contains the Wastewater Collection and Transportation System, where prospective crew cleanser products are used by volunteers to produce simulated spacecraft water.

While the current recycling technology works well on the space station, researchers are examining additional options that would use less power and stabilize the wastewater with fewer toxic chemicals.

“Between 2018 and 2020, we’re going to a bio-based system,” said Karen Pickering, group lead for the AWRSDF. “The problem is going to a smaller system.”

Water recycling has obvious applications in the North American shale plays, but scaling any of these systems won’t be easy. NASA likes to keep things small. Successfully treating hundreds of thousands of barrels of frac water at the wellsite will remain a challenge.

Other uses of the technology are not so far-fetched. Offshore platforms, while not as remote as the space station, are often dozens, if not hundreds, of miles away from land. Recycling more of the water used onboard the platform could save money and lead to a greener footprint.

These centers are just two of many sources of potential technology transfer between aerospace and energy.

For more information about the JSC initiative, visit Nasa.gov/centers/johnson/partnerships/index.html.

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