Astronauts are exceptional people, but they're people nonetheless, and NASA's Space Poop Challenge was a cheeky crowdsourcing campaign that recognized a certain fundamental reality of the human condition. As the famous children's maxim dictates, everybody poops, and the Space Poop Challenge asked innovators from around the world to come up with a system for dealing with the waste produced by astronauts when out on missions in the black.
The challenge specifically asked creative thinkers and designers to come up with a "system inside a space suit that collects human waste for up to 144 hours and routes it away from the body, without the use of hands." Considering that the system would need to work in microgravity, the challenge was a decidedly difficult one. However, there was no shortage of entrants, as the challenge turned out to be the most popular ever hosted on crowdsourcing site HeroX.
What's Driving This Trend
- Space Waste Management
- Opportunity for disruptive innovation in developing advanced waste removal systems for astronauts in space.
- Crowdsourcing Innovations
- Potential for disruption in leveraging crowdsourcing platforms to tap into global creativity for problem-solving.
- Microgravity Solutions
- Disruptive innovation possibilities exist in designing systems that effectively function in microgravity environments.
Who This Affects Most
- Space Exploration
- Space agencies and private space companies can explore potential disruptive innovations in waste management for astronauts.
- Technology and Design
- Opportunities for disruption in developing creative and efficient waste removal systems for space suits.
- Crowdsourcing Platforms
- Crowdsourcing platforms can expand their reach by hosting challenges that tackle complex problems in specialized domains.
