It’s no secret that humans poop — even in space.

But the actual, physical act of going to the bathroom while floating in space can be tricky, to say the least. In a new contest, NASA is calling on innovators from around the world to develop a new space toilet that would work not just in microgravity such as aboard the International Space Station, but also in lunar gravity aboard a future lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis program which aims to return humans to the moon by 2024. The contest has a total prize purse of $35,000 to be shared by winning teams.

“This challenge hopes to attract radically new and different approaches to the problem of human waste capture and containment,” NASA wrote in an overview of the challenge, titled “NASA’s Lunar Loo Challenge.”

The challenge is being overseen by the NASA Tournament Lab and organized on the HeroX crowdsourcing site.

(Feature Image credit: NASA/HeroX)

source space.com