>> So I grew up a few miles
from New York City.
And I was surrounded
by a lot of people
and a lot of trash.
And it always fascinated me
what we did with
all of those materials.
8.5 million people,
what does trash day look like?
I was fascinated at what happens
to all those materials
and molecules.
Like, funny enough,
my grandfather was also
a sanitation worker
in the Bronx.
And so there were
lots of stories growing up
of what it was like to be
a sanitation worker in the city.
But I think it's
kind of intriguing
that it kind of
ran in the family.
Waste collection in the Bronx,
to now I'm figuring out
how to process
and-and recover the resources
from waste for space.
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Hi, I'm Annie Meier.
I'm a chemical engineer
at Kennedy Space Center.
I work on resource recovery
or in-situ resource utilization.
And what that means is
along space missions,
we want to make sure we recover
as many resources as possible
that we have around us,
or that we brought
from our mission
that becomes waste
because we don't want to have
to launch everything from Earth.
How do we not throw things into
the trash can in space?
And if we do throw them
in the trash cans,
how do we recover the resources?
How do we get breathing oxygen
or fuel or water
out of that trash?
So think of going on
a very long trip
in a car or on a plane.
You would pack your luggage.
You would fill up your car
with whatever
type of fuel it needs,
but you would need
to refill along the way,
and that's using the resources
that you have found.
So you don't have to have
a giant suitcase
or, you know,
a car that's way too big
to drive on a road.
So for a 30 day
mission on the moon,
think of it
as a long camping trip.
You have four astronauts there,
and they're accumulating trash.
If we had a trash
to gas technology,
we could recover
about six gallon jugs of water
from the trash,
as well as 16 scuba tanks
worth of oxygen.
So we try to figure out
how we get the useful stuff
out of the trash.
So there's two technologies
that NASA's looking at
right now.
One is called
the trash compaction
processing system,
where they take the trash
and they crush it into tiles.
And that would reduce
the volume of the trash
so you're not sitting around
giant garbage bags
of trash all the time.
And the other one
is the trash to gas,
where we would recover
the resources from it
and try to do useful things.
So things like
the food packaging,
the clothing they wear,
the hygiene wipes
they're wiping their face with,
the toilet paper,
the-the food that's left over
in their food packaging,
all those things that go into
an astronaut's trash can,
how do we get
useful stuff out of them
and what can we get out of them?
Well, they're primarily
made of carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, and nitrogen.
And those compound--
those-those elements
are building blocks
of a lot of useful materials.
So we try to convert
some of those into a gas,
which is a mixture
of all different molecules.
So we have carbon dioxide
and methane,
and all of these things
are chemical soup
that we pack into a bag
or a container
and we can pressurize
and use as either fuel
or separate them out
and send them off
to breathing air,
if we purify it enough,
and we also collect out water
and any raw materials
like aluminum.
So a lot of our food packaging
has an aluminum layer,
and that aluminum
can potentially get used
for 3D printing new parts.
So we look at all the ways
that that trash
can become a resource
instead of just
sit inside a spacecraft
and sit around the astronauts,
because no one wants
to sit around their trash.
We're also looking at
how do we deflect things
from getting into the trash
to begin with,
and if they do end up
in the trash,
how do we process them
so that they are
more environmentally friendly
and they're not hazardous?
And what I love about this work
is that a lot of it
can tie back to the planet,
and these technologies
can be used to extract resources
from things here on Earth.
And so for me,
not only are we trying to do
this amazing stuff in space,
on other planets,
or on Mars missions,
but also for our planet Earth,
which to me is a core value
of why I do what I do.
So growing up in New York,
I remember when it would rain.
We were on the south shore
near the water,
and my mom would tell us
we can't go near the beach today
because all of this garbage
is on the beach.
There could be needles,
there could be
hazardous substances.
And that really confused me
as a child.
And I thought, "Why--
why is all this garbage
in the water?"
And so that's what triggered
my curiosity of, you know,
where is all this trash going?
Where is everyone's
waste going?
So that got me inclined
to just think about
how we reuse those resources
and recover stuff
and process it.
And where does it all go?
And that's what triggered
my interest
in-in chemical engineering.
I was fascinated by
my high school chemistry teacher
who told me about
atoms and molecules,
and it made me kind of realize
everything around us
is made up of these materials
that have chemical bonds.
And so when I was an undergrad
studying engineering,
I went to the Society
of Women Engineers conference,
and they have
a lot of companies there
that show up for a job fair,
and I was too nervous
to approach the booths
or even talk to the people.
So I kind of had to
take some time
and pep myself up.
And I eventually walked up
to the person standing there
and humbly handed them my resume
and said, "Here I am,
I'd like to apply as a student,"
and I never thought
I would even hear back anything.
But I ended up getting
two phone calls back
from Kennedy Space Center,
and here I am.
So I would say,
if you want to work
in engineering, or science,
or the space program,
do not be intimidated.
I know I just told you
I was intimidated,
but you can do it.
It takes a lot of hard work
and a lot of studying,
but if you really want
to do something,
you should give it
all you have and try.
So if you're not interested
in the STEM field,
or you think
you're not good at math
or you're not interested
in math,
I would say go where
your curiosity drives you
and you could still end up
doing amazing things.
Not everyone that works
at the space program
is a scientist or an engineer.
This whole place runs
by all different people
and all different backgrounds
here at Kennedy Space Center.
It's pretty much a city,
and we have a fire department.
We have health care workers.
We have a media team.
We have lawyers
and business analysts
and so many different majors
that you don't necessarily
have to be the--
the rocket scientist
or, you know, the engineer
that does it.
And that journey--
that-that journey
to get you there
will still be amazing
along the way
and will land you
somewhere great.
So don't give up.
And there's a place
for everyone.