Water Filtration Design Challenge Demonstrates Link Between Space and a Better Life on Earth

Join the Space Foundation on Tuesday evening, May 8, for the Water Filtration Design Challenge, a fun and educational exercise for children and adults that includes creating a water filtration system based on processes used aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The event, which will be held at the Space Foundation Discovery Institute at 105 Coleridge Ave. in Colorado Springs from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., is free to the public. If you are interested in attending, email [email protected] or contact the Space Foundation at 719-955-3240.

The program is part of Colorado Water 2012, a community awareness program sponsored by the Space Foundation, Pikes Peak Library District, Colorado Springs Utilities and 11 other community organizations to raise awareness about water as a valuable and limited resource.

Colorado Water 2012 goals include:

• Increasing support for management and protection of Colorado’s water and waterways
• Showcasing exemplary models of cooperation and collaboration among Colorado water users
• Connecting Coloradans to existing and new opportunities to learn about water
• Motivating Coloradans to become proactive participants in Colorado water’s future

For the Space Foundation, the program also provides the opportunity to demonstrate some surprising ways in which space technology dramatically improves the comfort, safety and efficiency of everyday activities and basic human services, such as ensuring a safe water supply. Water purification is a great example of an area that has been improved using techniques critical to the ISS, which gets its water only through long-distance spacecraft delivery or onboard purification and re-use. In fact, the Space Foundation has both granted Space Certification status to Water Security Corporation and inducted its space-based water purification process into the prestigious Space Technology Hall of Fame®.

Other local Colorado Water 2012 partners include:

• Bear Creek and Fountain Creek Nature Centers
• Catamount Institute
• Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
• City of Colorado Springs
• Colorado Springs School District 11
• Galleries of Contemporary Arts
• Garden of the Gods Visitor Center
• Imagination Celebration
• Pikes Peak Library District
• Rocky Mountain Field Institute
• Science Matters

Pictured: Astronauts aboard the International Space Station drink recycled water; NASA Astronaut and Space Foundation Special Advisor – Human Spaceflight Dr. Leroy Chiao contemplates water in microgravity; children in Chiapas, Mexico, pose in front of space-based Water Security Corporation purification system installed at their school