NASA’s Lunar Loo Challenge

Help astronauts go back to the Moon in 2024! NASA seeks new designs for a toilet that will work both in microgravity and lunar gravity.

Artemis is NASA’s program to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024.  Humanity is going back to the Moon to establish a presence that will enable eventual crewed journeys to Mars.  As we prepare for our return to the Moon, innumerable activities to equip, shelter, and otherwise support future astronauts are underway.  These astronauts will be eating and drinking, and subsequently urinating and defecating in microgravity and lunar gravity.  While astronauts are in the cabin and out of their spacesuits, they will need a toilet that has all the same capabilities as ones here on Earth.

NASA is calling on the global community for their novel design concepts for compact toilets that can operate in both microgravity and lunar gravity.  These designs may be adapted for use in the Artemis lunar landers that take us back to the Moon.  Although space toilets already exist and are in use (at the International Space Station, for example), they are designed for microgravity only.  NASA is looking for a next-generation device that is smaller, more efficient, and capable of working in both microgravity and lunar gravity.  Getting back to the Moon by 2024 is an ambitious goal, and NASA is already working on approaches to miniaturize and streamline the existing toilets.  But they are also inviting ideas from the global community, knowing that they will approach the problem with a mindset different from traditional aerospace engineering.  This challenge hopes to attract radically new and different approaches to the problem of human waste capture and containment.

The goal of this category is to get our younger participants excited and thinking about STEM projects, and specifically about lunar toilets.  If you are 15 or over and believe that you have an idea with technical merit, you can get your parent or guardian submit your design concept on your behalf in the main Technical category.

Junior Category

To submit to the Junior category, you must be less than 18.   If you are younger than 12 years old, you must have a parent register and submit on your behalf.

Prize

This challenge has two categories: Technical and Junior.  Submissions to both categories are due no later than 5pm ET on August 17, 2020.  The winners for the Technical category will be announced on September 30, and the winners for the Junior category will be announced on October 20, 2020.

In the Junior category, this challenge will recognize the top three submissions, one per age group.  The authors of these three submissions will each receive: public recognition from NASA and from HeroX, a winner’s certificate, and an item of official NASA-logoed merchandise.  Additional “mystery” prizes may also be awarded to winners of the Junior category.  Such prizes could include a video call between the winner’s science class and an astronaut, or NASA-logoed specialty items (patches, pins, etc).  To submit to this category, you must be less than 18 years of age.  

Submission deadline August 17, 2020 @ 5pm ET