NEWS

WIRES

OTHER

NASA engineers help Iraqis

NASA engineers, who are used to making a difference in the lives of astronauts in space, recently helped improve the lives of villagers in Iraq using NASA technology.

The engineers, via e-mail, helped volunteers fix a water filtration and purification system in an Iraqi village.

"To see our system solve a down-to-Earth problem, especially in a place where there's such a serious need ...there's no greater reward than that," said Robyn Carrasquillo, the engineering manager for the Environmental Control and Life Support System, or ECLSS, project at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Volunteering their own time, engineers at Marshall helped install and test a water purification system in Kendala.

Two years ago, the village's deep-water well pump failed thus leaving residents without access to clean water. The population quickly dwindled from more than 1,000 residents to just 150.

Those who stayed were forced to haul water from nearby creeks muddied by livestock. They also dug shallow wells and strained the water through fabric to remove dirt and debris.

The village's plight drew the attention of Concern For Kids, a nonprofit organization in Lawrenceville, Ga., that has provided aid to Iraq since 1992. Recognizing the need for cutting-edge technology to save lives and revive the ailing community, Todd Harrison, the organization's president, turned to his sister, Carrasquillo.

The ECLSS system is designed to recycle air and water on the International Space Station, dramatically reducing the need for frequent, costly supply missions from Earth. Harrison knew NASA engineers at Marshall developed many technologies for water purification in the 1970s and 1980s for the space shuttle program and the International Space Station. So he posed a challenge to Carrasquillo and her team: Help install and test a new, ground-based water purification system to improve the quality of life for Iraqis struggling to rebuild their village and country.

The Concern For Kids filtration and purification uses the same technology developed for NASA and used on the space shuttle. The system uses iodine to purify water from streams, rivers, wells and swamps to be used as drinking water for the local population. Early this year, volunteers installed a 528-gallon water tank in the village and, with the help of U.S. Soldiers, began trucking in fresh water.

But the water needed to be cleaned and required some modification to maintain healthy iodine levels. There were two problems with the water purification unit in Kendala. The new water pump was improperly configured and the iodine bed had dried out during transport.

That's when Carrasquillo's team, half a world away, came into play. The engineers at Marshall e-mailed advice and instructions, helping to fix the pump configuration problem and guiding the Iraq field team in rehydrating the resin bed. The field team was able to deliver safe, clean drinking water to the Kendala village for the first time in two years.

Now, Concern For Kids hopes to provide additional purification units for other villages. At Marshall, the ECLSS system's water processor draws ever nearer to flight, and Carrasquillo is confident the technology will serve the space station well.

The technology is a major leap forward in serving the needs of future space explorers on the space station, on the moon or during deep-space missions to the outer reaches of the solar system.

"Each astronaut in space requires about three gallons of water every day," Carrasquillo said. "That's far less than the 35 gallons or so used each day by the average American, but still an amount that quickly adds up, crowding our shuttles and rockets and creating prohibitive costs."

Source: Multi-National Force-Iraq

judythpiazza@gmail.com