By Mark Brown, Wired UK

The United Nations' first satellite, the $5 million UNESCOSat project, has a pretty clear goal: to find out if astronauts' faeces can be used as an effective fuel source in space.

The orbiting craft will launch in 2011 with the aim of assisting in education, promoting public awareness of science, and improving international co-operation. Teachers and students will be able to communicate with the satellite in specially designed space technology courses.

But the craft will also carry a number of student-designed experiments. Schools and academies presented proposals for student research that could be carried out on the satellite, and the space systems program at Florida Institute of Technology was granted two spots. Their payloads will have testing areas, mixing vessels and solenoid pumps, and will be filled to the brim with anaerobic bacteria – the kind that don't require oxygen for growth.

The bacteria in question – Shewanella MR-1 – can break down human faeces into hydrogen, which could top up fuel cells and replenish a spaceship's power source. But the students at Florida want to find out how well the bacteria works when orbiting the planet, and how the bacteria's life cycle will alter when subjected to the different temperatures, pressures and gravities of space.

If the plan proves successful, it could hold very real implications for space travel. As missions move further and further away from Earth, ships need better ways of conserving or generating extra fuel. Scientists have already found a use for waste urine, which is recycled as drinking water on the ISS. Now they've got to figure out a good use for the other stuff.

Image: A space toilet. Flickr/cerebusfangirl

Source: Wired.co.uk

See Also: