Scientists collect urine from SpaceX travelers. There is a good reason.

Jay Buckey flew into space as a NASA astronaut in 1998. Decades later, he watched one of his experiments leave Earth on a SpaceX rocket.

The company’s Polaris Dawn space endeavor — a private venture funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman — is a five-day mission around Earth that features an ambitious attempt at a spacewalk. The mission also carried dozens of science experiments, including one designed by Buckey, now a professor of medicine and director of Dartmouth College’s Space Medicine Innovations Lab, and Mimi Lan, a Dartmouth PhD candidate and engineer. .

In particular, it is a device to collect the urine of SpaceX travelers. It’s part of the scientists’ goal to track bone loss in astronauts — especially on future space trips — and monitor whether a space traveler is at risk of developing kidney stones. That’s because, in space, calcium leaves our bones, enters the bloodstream, and comes out in the urine.

“If you remove the gravity, the bone starts to break down,” Buckey told Mashable after the mission successfully launched on Sept. 10.

Buckey and Lan wanted to prove that the “first morning void” — the first pee in the morning and usually the most concentrated of the day — could reliably track bone loss and show whether astronauts were at increased risk of developing of kidney stones. (Kidney stones form when substances like calcium become too concentrated in the urine.) If this happens on the way to, say, Mars, an alert astronaut might start drinking more water, or if necessary, take medicine. No one wants to pass a stone to a stone ever; especially in a small space capsule.

“If you remove gravity, the bone starts to break down.”

SpaceX passengers will use a device similar to the one shown below, held by Lan, to collect their concentrated urine on the first morning. In outer space, urinary calcium rises rapidly, so the researchers suspected that just one void on this condensed mission would be enough to demonstrate that they could reliably obtain a usable sample. For this experiment, the samples will not be analyzed in space, but will be taken to a lab on Earth. (For comparison, SpaceX passengers provided urine samples before launch.)

Mimi Lan holding a urine collection device, similar to the one aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission.
Credit: David Haley / Dartmouth College

The tweet may have been deleted

NASA has been intensively investigating bone loss in astronauts, and how to prevent it – so such a tracking device could be very relevant as the agency works to build a lunar-orbiting space station and send man in deeper space.

“For every month in space, astronauts’ weight-bearing bones become about 1 percent less if they don’t take precautions to combat this loss,” the agency explained. “A lot of research is focused on determining the right combination of diet, exercise, and medicine to keep astronauts healthy during missions and when they return to Earth or set foot on the Moon or Mars.”

ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Alexander Gerst exercises on the space station to combat loss of bone and muscle density.
Credit: NASA

While orbiting the moon, or on a long trip to Mars or an asteroid, Buckey envisions an astronaut collecting their first morning void for three consecutive days every few weeks or so. That seemed like an achievable option in cramped quarters, in the midst of days full of spacecraft operations, trying to exercise, run experiments, and survive. Many of the later expeditions to the moon and Mars will not be able to board a roomy space shuttle (large enough to carry eight astronauts).

“The future is smaller flights in smaller capsules,” Buckey said.