Comment by idlewords
4 hours ago
There's a nice paper on this, ICES-2018-123 "Dimethylsilanediol (DMSD) Source Assessment and Mitigation on ISS: Estimated Contributions from Personal Hygiene Products Containing Volatile Methyl Siloxanes (VMS)". The upshot is more than half of the siloxane burden on ISS comes from God knows where (packaging, plastics, machinery, you name it).
https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/items/ff1a240e-1fb1-4b04-acb2-42e9c45...
From the paper:
> The main sources of VMS were determined to be antiperspirants ... skin lotions ... wipes ... and hair conditioner. Several siloxanes-free options are available for [these products]. These products are now being assessed for crew member use in future increments.
From the blog:
> At present the agency is testing a new filtration system to put in front of the heat exchangers, to try to protect them, and continuing to try to cut down on siloxanes at the source level. There are probably people at NASA now whose entire career has been built on siloxane control.
Why wasn't the result to simply ban siloxane-containing cosmetics and wipes? The cosmetics are up to the individual astronaut, which is a little crazy, but the wipes are provided by NASA, and they're still using siloxane-bearing wipes, which shortens the life of their water systems and costs crazy amounts of money.
You can't just replace stuff in a sealed environment - if the new stuff is better in one way it might be worse than others. Gotta do the qualification work - remember they're drinking piss up there.
> Why wasn't the result to simply ban siloxane-containing cosmetics and wipes?
I would assume there is an approval process in place and alternatives have to go through this process before they can be sent up. It might take months or years for approval.
Surely they can find simpler natural products which don't pose problems. It's crazy the premium placed on comfort. I'm sure astronauts would barely notice the absence of the chemical from the products.
There are so many useless chemicals in modern products... Like foamers in shampoos... You don't need that crap, it works fine without it... But us humans are so stupid that we think that if the shampoo ain't foaming, it ain't working. Same story with artificial colours. Human idiocy and suggestibility to marketing is infuriating. Bahhhh bahhhh. Mooo mooooo.