Space Station Live: Starting Fire in Water

Space Station Live commentator Josh Byerly talks to Michael Hicks of the NASA Glenn Research Center, the principal investigator of the Supercritical Water Mixture experiment on the International Space Station. Hicks discusses his research on orbit into how to control the precipitation of salt from supercritical water—water at extreme pressure and high temperature—in order to prevent corrosion of metallic components of vessels used when supercritical water is mixed with oxygen to eliminate organic wastes. Using supercritical water to start the process of oxidation is a way to purify waste streams on ships and on land, and could be useful in future space vehicles.