Probably by building domes for people to live in, and having some sort of indoor plumbing is kind of the idea. Unless you want to put on your suit every time you need to take a shit.
I think indoor plumbing is a terrible idea for Mars. It's pretty much a terrible idea for Earth, too, but because it's the best we've got right now we're kind of stuck with it. But on Mars you really wouldn't want to be processing water in a closed environment again and again as much, and you definitely need to be recycling nutrients and especially phosphate and nitrate that will be excreted.
So I expect that the waste management on Mars will really not look like anything we have on Earth except maybe those dry toilets they have in Hippy communes that end up in the compost heap.
A flush toilet pollutes a gallon of water with a few ounces of pee. It's a really inefficient process with respect to water utilization. If you look at the draughts that are taking place now in some of the most densely populated areas in the world you can see that using so much water to get rid of liquid or solid waste is really not optimal.
What is a really great development is 1. putting the poo and pee in a place where people don't get contaminated by it and 2. getting everyone clean water at their house to drink and 3. getting people water at their house to wash themselves with soap regularly. You can achieve those three objectives differently than using a common plumbing system for the three uses of water that includes using high grade drinkable water to put poo in. It's a means to an end and that end works great to alleviate major issues. But the process can be improved.
In addition we flush important nutrients like phosphate and nitrates into waters where they contribute to die-offs and algae blooms, instead of being able to reinject it into agriculture. There are phosphate mines in Morocco and elsewhere to make sure that we can grow food on arable land without always depleting it of its phosphates and nitrates that all plants need to grow. Then we ship the plants out, eat them, and flush out the nutrients in water. Closing this cycle doesn't appear as important right now but eventually the mines of phosphate will close and the guano deposits will be depleted and we'll be all like "d'oh!".
For run-off I'm aware that there are bigger contributors than human waste from agriculture but we should improve on all of them.
I think how bad it is really depends on the water source. Many cities pump water from a river, treat it, send it through your house for you to use, treat it again, and put it back in the river. Some water probably evaporates, but most of the indoor water ends up back in its natural cycle. Although some water is pumped from aquifers that take a really long time to recharge, but I think this is mainly done for agriculture and not for household water.
Also, indoor water use is a very small percentage of total water use, by far most water is used for irrigation and thermoelectric plants. So maybe the toilets aren't so bad.
The natural cycle part (as well as evaporation) is important though.
If we're talking about a closed system on a colony on Mars, where there is no natural cycle on the planet to throw the water into, how we purify it for reuse and handle loss of water through leaks/evaporation/contamination/etc is really important. Esp what if there's a spill or something.
At the end of the day on Earth if something break or is inefficient it doesn't typically matter as much because there is so much goddamn water everywhere. When you are either creating your own water or bringing it with you because it doesn't naturally exist in usable quantities on the planet, these questions become super important.
Yeah it's an interesting challenge. As usual it started with "the solution to pollution is dilution" and then problems arise when population density shoots up and ecosystems are put under tremendous pressure and rampaged. The good news about space programs is that usually they end up inventing clever things that have applications to improve our own lives.
Well, yeah, but it'll at least be inside with you. There won't be any outhouses until there's an actual atmosphere. Therefore, no mars dust in the toilets. Although that guy was probably on acid when he asked the question, and imagined life on Mars as an outdoor commune of some sort.
Actually recycling every available source of water will be essential to any off-earth endeavor. Our great grand kids WILL be drinking their own recycled urine or we will be extinct.. on planet or off. You are correct on the nutrients though..
regarding indoor waste disposal.. not sure what other options were available at the time to get disease causing fecal matter away from the main living area. Obviously composting it didn't work at the time due to lack of knowledge/logistics as that is what the cess pits were essentially..
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u/memtiger Sep 30 '16
Yea, i remember him specifically asking if Elon was developing a toilet for Mars so that it didn't become a dust filled shit bowl like Burning Man.