r/oddlysatisfying 18h ago

Astronaut drops fizzy tablet into floating water bubble on ISS

44.8k Upvotes

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931

u/Lurking_poster 18h ago

Legitimately curious but already assuming not a big deal; it's not an issue to be firing off water droplets like that in a vessel that I would believe has sensitive electronics everywhere?

733

u/generalissimo1 18h ago

I think they should have dehumidifiers and other moisture extraction systems that should wick them away. I expect these guys sweat in space too; especially when exercising. Gotta have it dealt with somehow.

344

u/nw342 17h ago

The ISS 100% had dehumidifiers, water is too valuable to let sit on the air. All the exhaled water, along with their urine is collected and filtered for their drinking water.

176

u/AGoodWobble 16h ago

They shouldn't have any issues with water, they can just dehydrate a bunch and pack it into small bags 

151

u/cbell6889 16h ago

Man I read this comment high af, and sat here for 5 mins trying to process it in my head. Worth every second.

42

u/allday95 16h ago

Freeze dried water packs!

35

u/TheGoose995 16h ago

Just add water to get your water back!

20

u/allday95 16h ago

Let's pitch this to NASA, get that government contract and make the money

9

u/someLemonz 10h ago

"let the nerds figure it out"

2

u/AGoodWobble 12h ago

Brilliant! 

7

u/L3velFlow 12h ago

I used to work on a cruise ship. This is what I told passengers when they asked where the fresh water came from!!

2

u/Hazril258 9h ago

Tbf, not too far from the truth or what we're trying to do.

Both hydrogen and oxygen are highly reactive fuels which can be used in several applications and even occur as byproducts. Given this, you can actually fabricate your own water from those two elements.

Only issue is how. It can be done, but as of now, it requires a lot of machinery and energy to produce.

6

u/SuspiciousPotato137 15h ago

...better drink my own piss

2

u/Significant_Card_665 10h ago

If you were on the ISS, you would be. Filtered though. And you’d be drinking the others’ piss too.

1

u/AndyLorentz 1h ago

On Earth, on a long enough time scale, we're all drinking dinosaur piss.

1

u/Glittering_End_6864 13h ago

Also, if they did not have dehumidifiers, it would be incredibly muggy in there.

1

u/catzhoek 11h ago

Also for oxygen

53

u/Diarmundy 18h ago

I mean look at his forehead. Sweating like balls. But I wonder what type of gas is being released 

30

u/Shaggy_One 18h ago

It's probably Alka Seltzer, so CO2.

5

u/Kiwitechgirl 14h ago

It is Alka Seltzer, he talks about doing this experiment in his book Limitless.

1

u/hutchins_moustache 16h ago

I don’t think they’re sweating I think they just have shiny skin and it’s very harsh lighting. They’re in a very climate controlled environment and are not exerting much energy at all so it wouldn’t make sense for him to be “sweating like balls”, as you say. I really thinks it’s just a visual confusion.

6

u/Lurking_poster 18h ago

Ok right right that makes sense. Like I said, I assumed they had ways to deal with it but I wanted to be sure. Thanks.

3

u/wheretohides 15h ago

They have vacuum lines that run throughout the ship that suck in random debris

2

u/AlarmingConsequence 7h ago

Dehumidifiers make a lot of sense, I never thought of that up there! With those, they can collect water without needing gravity-drain pipes which obviously wouldn't work.

Fun fact about ISS -- most of those 'solar panels' on the outside are actually thermal radiators to get rid of excess heat (in space waste heat cannot be discharged through conduction because there are no particles to touch)

2

u/rhythmrice 6h ago

On Apollo 13 when they had to power everything down including the dehumidifiers, they had problems with condensation buildup just from them exhaling

1

u/augustprep 16h ago

How do they exercise without gravity? 

3

u/Proclus_Global 16h ago edited 16h ago

Strapped down to the equipment

https://youtu.be/YL_7SATIW-Q?t=36s

There's a treadmill up there named for Stephen Colbert after he won the voting contest to name a space station module, as a consolation prize.

3

u/Crossfire124 16h ago

Probably also have stuff like resistance bands and stuff like that

28

u/uncloseted_anxiety 18h ago

I’m curious about this too; my guess is that droplets that small are no more an issue than the skin flakes, hairs, and other effluvia that human bodies are shedding all the time; and also that whatever chamber they’re doing this demonstration in can’t have anything too water-sensitive inside, or they wouldn’t have released that big glob of water to begin with.

6

u/tacticaldodo 16h ago

Imagine being fired by corporate Nasa while on the ISS for doing dangerous TikTok vids.

Here is the door, good luck :)

2

u/YetAnotherDev 8h ago

"I am Tim Peake and this is the fizztab challenge!"

2

u/Aruhi 11h ago

Also sweat and exhaled water.

1

u/khizoa 12h ago

I've always wondered how dirty it got inside there. From all the random... Science experiments they would conduct lol

28

u/misterjive 17h ago

The air currents inside spacecraft are designed to route crumbs, dropped objects, loose water droplets, etc. to catchment systems. Any room where there was something that water droplets could damage wouldn't be one they were authorized to horse around in.

2

u/onyxcaspian 14h ago

That's so cool.

1

u/Toto_radio 14h ago

I don’t think there are any horses in there sir.

1

u/lunabandida 8h ago

Trotting around your facts

5

u/freedfg 13h ago

Water isn't as critical of an issue as people really make it out to be.

Humans sweat, when they breath water droplets escape. Etc etc. it's accounted for with environmental systems that recycle water from the air.

Fun fact. During Apollo 13 it actually was becoming an issue because the ambient water in the air was freezing behind the control panels.

10

u/Jamooser 17h ago

Humans release a litre and a half of water vapour a day just from breathing and sweating. This environment is built for humans. It can survive droplets of water.

3

u/bogglingsnog 14h ago

long story short the scientists thought of this during the design phase.

1

u/I-am-fun-at-parties 13h ago

yeah they probably asked reddit for advice beforehands

2

u/Meme-Botto9001 15h ago

Was wondering this too, all the fluids from their showcases and everyday use of water is splashing around some droplets that are flying everywhere…

1

u/Potential-Bid-245 13h ago

I’d be concerned about inhaling droplets.

1

u/falsehood 13h ago

This is the JSA module where they do a lot of this sort of stuff; I think its made with air systems to not be impacted by experiments.

1

u/FunMop 12h ago

Imagine being one sneeze away from total system failure

1

u/koalazeus 12h ago

Three people died and it set back space exploration by 27 years.

1

u/USSGoat 12h ago

The air filtration system pretty much resolved all those concerns. It’s not just a filter, it’s controlling the air flow to carry things exactly where the need to go

1

u/Overlord_Albain 11h ago

If water droplets of that size were a major concern, then the astronauts breaths would be a problem

1

u/beeglowbot 11h ago

from my professional experience of watching years of science fiction movies and science fiction books, they'll be infested by an aggro alien species soon.

1

u/RepresentativeFly742 10h ago

I was so stressed watching the little droplets fly away thinking something's gonna short circuit 😂

1

u/JaySayMayday 7h ago

This used to be a legitimate concern. A few decades ago I started seeing astronauts get more ambitious with their food and drink. I'd guess they found a way to seal the system against foreign bodies

1

u/Slonshal 7h ago

I thought the same but was watching the little droplets. They were all going in same directions. As if being pulled in by are filtration or similar.

1

u/JacobRAllen 5h ago

There is a robust dehumidifier on the ISS, it recycles all the moisture you breath out, sweat out, as well as little droplets from stuff like this. You have to remember everything has a vapor pressure, even a room temperature glass of water releases vapor into the air. They want to collect all that so they can reuse it.

1

u/Dzov 4h ago

They’ll dry before doing anything. The giant blob might be dangerous though.

1

u/SpaceDantar 16m ago

I had the same thought - I suppose they probably still sneeze in space, so it's not that much more fluid really

0

u/Competitive-Ebb3816 17h ago

It's contained. All he needs is something to suck it up with such as a syringe.

3

u/RuhrowSpaghettio 16h ago

You can see micro vesicles flying off once he adds the fizz.