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Future human space exploration missions present significant challenges for life support system (LSS) development. These life support systems will require incorporation of regenerative technologies to reduce or eliminate expendables and be low risk, demonstrating high reliability and long-term performance capability. A regenerative LSS for Space Station is a key step toward meeting these future space exploration requirements. In the development of the Space Station regenerative LSS, the challenges have been both technical and budgetary. Currently, the International Space Station Alpha (ISSA) program will consist of three Phases. Phase I will be MIR/Shuttle Orbiter flights with United States (US) crews attending to the various US flight experiments on-board the MIR. Phase II will consist mostly of Russian launched modules and the United States (US) Laboratory module. Phase III will launch the US Habitat module to implement US regenerative LSS.

A microgravity whole body shower and waste water recovery system were evaluated in three separate closed loop tests at NASA/JSC. These tests covered a period from August 1985 to June 1987 in which shower waste water was reclaimed and reused for showering. Test persons showered in a preprototype whole body shower following a protocol similar to that anticipated for the Space Station. Each test was performed by using different water recovery system technologies which included phase change distillation and two separate reverse osmosis processes. These were integrated with post-treatment for the final purification of the reclaimed water. The phase change, a preprototype Thermoelectric Hollow Fiber Membrane Evaporation Subsystem was used for the initial test with chemical pretreatment of the shower waste water input. A reverse osmosis dynamic membrane system was used for the second test and a 2-stage ultrafiltration/reverse osmosis system for the third test.