Water and Power

[RatPatrol]

The first is that discounting watering the lawn the average person uses approximately 50-100 gallons of water per day.

you can get by with a lot less, only a gal or 2 is required for basic survival
... really only a gal a day just for drinking, of course stranded on a desert planet, your body will require more ..
.. but sitting in a climate controlled courier probably a lot less

Basic Water Needs

 

[Timerover51]

Actually, the 50-100 gallons per day would allow for watering the lawn. Remember, that is a "per person" use.

@RatPatrol, were you a fan of the TV show when it was on? The entire series is on DVD.

 

[esampson]

you can get by with a lot less, only a gal or 2 is required for basic survival
... really only a gal a day just for drinking, of course stranded on a desert planet, your body will require more ..
.. but sitting in a climate controlled courier probably a lot less

Basic Water Needs

Yes, you can get by with a lot less if you give up things such as bathing, washing clothes, etc.

You're probably going to have difficulty convincing your High Passage travellers to forgo that for a week (you might find it difficult convincing the High Passage travellers to let the Middle Passage travellers to forgo bathing for a week as well). What I was really looking for were the water requirements that might be expected in 'normal operations' (whatever those are).

 

[HG_B]

What I was really looking for were the water requirements that might be expected in 'normal operations' (whatever those are).

"On average, our direct indoor water use comes to over 69 gallons of water per person per day.

Most indoor water use goes to toilets (about 27 percent), washing machines (about 22 percent), showers and baths (about 19 percent) and sinks (about 16 percent). Surprisingly, almost 14 percent of the water we use indoors is lost to leaky toilets and faucets—that’s nearly 10 gallons of water per person per day down the drain!"

So, ~60 gallons/day. Since at the TL's we are using you can recycle 99% of that on a continuous basis, you'll need about 20-25 gallons (100 liters) per person total when you leave the Star port.

 

[Rabbit 3]

"On average, our direct indoor water use comes to over 69 gallons of water per person per day.

Most indoor water use goes to toilets (about 27 percent), washing machines (about 22 percent), showers and baths (about 19 percent) and sinks (about 16 percent). Surprisingly, almost 14 percent of the water we use indoors is lost to leaky toilets and faucets—that’s nearly 10 gallons of water per person per day down the drain!"

So, ~60 gallons/day. Since at the TL's we are using you can recycle 99% of that on a continuous basis, you'll need about 20-25 gallons (100 liters) per person total when you leave the Star port.

One positive aspect about the whole thing is that throughout the universe water in one form or another is a very common resource.
So `topping up` a life-support system with water as part of the refueling process can probably be assumed.
Also note that a big losses in the stats are from the plumbing, its reasonable to assume that on a starship most of that is connected to the recycling system and the toilets are NOT of the water flush variety (spectacularly dumb idea for a lot of reasons).

I tend to assume that most spacecraft `Leak` anyway as no life-support system smaller than a planet or at least large space colony can be assumed to be 100% efficient.
Small spacecraft probably continually lose a small amount of atmosphere every time the airlocks cycle and there is likely some `problem` waste that builds up in the recycling system that cant be disposed off easily.
Water may not even be the most critical element if the power plant technology produces a certain amount as a by-product.

This rather suggests that a ship`s engineer spends a good part of their time carrying out preventative maintanence on the physical part of the L/S system and monitoring the environmental balance of the ship to cach any problem before it gets serious, anything from CO2 build up, general air loss, toxins in air or water system, There is a LOT that could go wrong.

 

[Timerover51]

This rather suggests that a ship`s engineer spends a good part of their time carrying out preventative maintanence on the physical part of the L/S system and monitoring the environmental balance of the ship to cach any problem before it gets serious, anything from CO2 build up, general air loss, toxins in air or water system, There is a LOT that could go wrong.

That type of work is standard onboard of ballistic missile submarines now, as they are underwater for a month at a time.

 

[Rabbit 3]

That type of work is standard onboard of ballistic missile submarines now, as they are underwater for a month at a time.

I kind of think myself that Nuclear subs are probably about the best `real world` models for how things might be like on future spacecraft.
Only difference being that in that case there is a lot of water on the outside trying to get in while in space the situation is rather reversed!
So its worth doing some reading up on how the ISS works as well

 

[Timerover51]

I kind of think myself that Nuclear subs are probably about the best `real world` models for how things might be like on future spacecraft.
Only difference being that in that case there is a lot of water on the outside trying to get in while in space the situation is rather reversed!
So its worth doing some reading up on how the ISS works as well

You also might want to look at some of the space colony studies that NASA has done as well. Thomas Heppenheimer' book, Colonies in Space, is available for online reading at the following website. It has a lot of good information in it as well.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/index.html

 

[Rabbit 3]

You also might want to look at some of the space colony studies that NASA has done as well. Thomas Heppenheimer' book, Colonies in Space, is available for online reading at the following website. It has a lot of good information in it as well.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/index.html

Well worth reading but I`ve been picking up books and articles on that sort of thing for a long time now (notice the 1977 publication date) and still waiting for most of it to happen!

More and more though I find myself not taking that sort of thing entirely seriously and spend my time just reading the factual stuff and watching things like the broadasts from the ISS.
I suspect that a lot of the things in those studies will happen eventually but NASA probably will not be the primary influence in making it happen given the tendancy for the US political system to FUBAR most of their country`s manned space program.

In the long term its beginning to look that the Russian way of doing things i.e "stick to the same basic designs" approach will probably win out, working in concert with the other space agences like the ESA and some private investment rather then NASA`s "lets re-invent the wheel again" approach to everything.