Atrophy of the human body occurs when Earth’s gravitational force is removed for long periods. It is known that exercise is a countermeasure to atrophy. Over time, exercising and daily activities will deposit bodily excretions on clothing, regardless of location. Without proper laundering, clothes lend themselves to being consumables in deep-space living due to the adverse health effects of contaminated textiles. Textiles for spaceflight consume volume, mass, and the forethought of additional volume and handling of highly saturated textiles. To address the problem of soiled textiles off Earth, researchers at UC Davis have developed an approach to laundering textiles in space vehicles and habitats with human aerobic exercise, wastewater management, damage-reducing textile agitation, and a feedback metric for textile cleanliness.

The stand-alone aerobic exercise and textile laundering device is derived from a bicycle. The upper body's cyclical exercise moves and increases red blood cell count to improve circulation and cellular composition. Exerted human energy powers a set of diode spectrometers that quantify the abundance of particulates and organics in the water entering and exiting the textile agitation chamber. The exercise motion drives a tuneable vibration plate mechanism that agitates a laundering bladder to promote textile contaminant removal while reducing textile abrasion. The water flow path is a closed loop path containing a reservoir and filters. The filters aim to remove as many organic compounds and particulates as possible from the water to generate favorable concentration gradients.