Poop-Powered Rocket in NASA's Future, Researchers Say

Turning human waste into rocket fuel might sound like science fiction – strange science fiction – but it’s not.

That’s according to researchers at the University of Florida who say they’ve come up with a process that can effectively turn human poop into a viable fuel source. The team of researchers was tasked by NASA back in 2006 to come up with a way to make human waste produced during manned space missions more useful.

The idea came about as NASA began making plans to construct an inhabited facility on the moon’s surface between 2019 and 2024. It seems that poop disposal presented a huge challenge. While waste produced on short-term manned flights is generally stored and burned up on re-entry, storage for a manned station proved problematic. Since disposal on the moon’s surface wasn’t an option either, NASA turned to UF for ideas, the university explained on its website.

Pratap Pullammanappallil, a UF associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering, and then graduate student Abhishek Dhoble took on the unusual task.

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With a research team in place, NASA began supplying chemically produced human waste for the project. The two researchers quickly got to work to determine just how much methane gas could be produced from the waste and how long the process would take, the University’s website states.

“We were trying to find out how much methane can be produced from uneaten food, food packaging and human waste,” Pullammanappallil was quoted as saying. “The idea was to see whether we could make enough fuel to launch rockets and not carry all the fuel and its weight from Earth for the return journey. Methane can be used to fuel the rockets. Enough methane can be produced to come back from the moon.”

The process developed enables the creation of about 290 liters of methane a day per crew member over a one week period, Tech Times stated. According to the University, that production results from a process that kills the pathogens found in human waste while leaving a viable biogas behind.

While it’s unclear how soon or even if NASA will create poop-powered rockets, the research has applications right here on Earth, Pullammanappallil said.

“It could be used on campus or around town, or anywhere, to convert waste into fuel,” the Sun-Sentinel quoted him as saying. The possibilities include fuel for transportation, heating and electricity, among others.

Photo by NASA/Patrick Black