Eat My Shorts.

Being an astronaut may be one of the coolest jobs in the universe, but did you ever wonder how space explorers deal with dirty underwear? Yes, they do change their underwear daily, but on long spacestation missions old shorts pile up fast. For astronauts on the Russian Space Station Mir (MEER), a supply spaceship delivered fresh undies and took away dirty ones only twice a year! "Waste and clothes disposal are among the worst problems astronauts encounter in space," says Vyacheslav Ilyin, a microbial ecologist (expert on tiny organisms called microbes) with the State Research Center in Moscow, Russia.

To solve the problem, Russian scientists are trying to whip up a batch of microbes that will literally eat through cotton, disposing of it. Astronauts will drop their drawers into a microbial "soup," and the microbes will devour their underwear within minutes. Best of all, while disposing of the undies, the organisms release methane, a gas. Methane could be harnessed and used to power the craft. "This is a revolution in the science of biodegradation (the use of organisms to recycle waste)," Ilyin says.

Not all scientists are so optimistic. "In theory, the microbe soup should work," says Jay Garland, a microbial ecologist with NASA. Cotton is made of cellulose (a type of carbohydrate), which bacteria can break down, he explains. "But if microbes are eating your boxers, you need a lot of underwear to start with--and spaceships are small." Washing clothes and then recycling wash water is much more practical, he thinks. Garland is currently at work on a chemical solution that will purify laundry water. Astronauts will wash and rewash clothes in the same recycled water in small washing machines. The bad news is, astronauts will have to do their laundry themselves!