Comment by eigenhombre | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eigenhombre | Hacker News Reader

Am tickled to see this here, having done these calculations myself in the same place several years running (due to summer visits at the Pole for work from 1997-2011).

The author doesn't mention workouts. There are good gym facilities at the Pole, and there's nothing like a half-minute shower (the author's "Option 2") after using them. Now that I know there is an appetite for shower recipes, I'll share mine from 2011[1].

I will say that living under tightly constrained conditions...

- incredibly cold temperatures, typically -30F in the summer

- at times, relatively infrequent "freshies" (fresh vegges/fruits)

- spotty Internet bandwidth

- the water constraints under discussion

- ...

... give one a renewed appreciation for the common luxuries one typically has in "the real world."

The biggest surprise luxury when getting off the Ice at Summer's end? Nighttime.

(I only deployed in Summer -- daylight all the time at Pole.)

[1] http://johnj.com/posts/shower-instructions/

(edit: formatting, and fix gender assumption)

Did anyone ever engineer the shower heads to reduce the GPM and thus, increase their shower time?

At 1.3gpm, you're already well into this-is-an-unsatisfying-flow-rate territory. I stayed at a camp once that had .9gpm showers, and even though our time limits were a lot more lenient than what is described in TFA, it was close to the point where I would have rather had a bucket and a sponge.

1.8gpm is the current standard for California, just as an example, and I would say subjectively ~2.5gpm is where you hit genuinely satisfying amounts of water.

Took a unique shower experience at White's Landing on Catalina Island. It was late at night and the open-roof stall was surrounded by walls. The stalls were divided by plywood walls with a 2ft gap from the ground and curtains. Wind was strong, around 20-30 mph, making everything blow around. The temperature was chilly, mid-50s, and water pressure was low, around 1 GPM. There was also fox poop in the next stall. Despite these conditions, showering under the stars with my partner was a memorable moment. We laughed at the strange noises we made due to the cold and wind.

We realized that we should shower earlier next time.

Someone made an even better solution, surprised it's not used at the South pole actually!

Originally developed for the ISS, this shower system filters and recycles shower water, saving both water and energy!

https://orbital-systems.com/

Ah the thing they had on Ceres in the Expanse isn't it?

"Use with Alexa" No thanks, guess I'll have to build my own, dumbed down manual version; A graywater catchment, with cyclone bin, settlement barrel, and solar evaporator, perhaps. Or just a standard garden-variety graywater harvesting setup.

Wow, impressive. I didn't know such a thing existed. Need to tell my uncle who builds/maintains gas/water/heating systems for houses in Germany for clients.

0.75 gpm: https://www.moen.com/nebia-by-moen

Or DIY 2 l/min = 0.53 gpm: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/10/mist-showers-sustain...

Thanks for sharing. In the picture of Gary, what is the contraption in front of his mouth?

Guessing it is a breathing mask like https://www.airtrim.se/eng/default.asp to make the air you breathe in warm and moist. Common for athletes here in the Nordics. Not sure about the exact science but I remember hearing exercising outdoors starts to be bad for the lungs around -15 to -20C (5 to -4F) Because the air is so dry.

And if you have asthma it's bad even below 0 C. I use my Lungplus [1] as soon as the weather hits +5 C, makes me able to actually do something outdoors in the winter. It's just a heat exchanger in your mounth, storing heat from the exhaust air, and heating up the intake air [2] :-)

[1] https://www.lungplus.se/databl_e.html

[2] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=lungplus&iax=images&ia=imag...

If I recall correctly, Gary made a little funnel apparatus to keep his goggles from fogging up.

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