Urine Passes NASA Taste Test 404
Ponca City, We love you writes "Astronauts flying aboard space shuttle Endeavour are delivering a device to the International Space Station that may leave you wondering if NASA is taking recycling too far. Among the ship's cargo is a water regeneration system that distills, filters, ionizes, and oxidizes wastewater — including urine — into fresh water for drinking or, as one astronaut puts it, 'will make yesterday's coffee into today's coffee.' The US space agency spent $250M for the water recycling equipment but with the space shuttles due to retire in two years, NASA needed to make sure the station crew would have a good supply of fresh water. The Environmental Control and Life Support Systems uses a purification process called vapor compression distillation: urine is boiled until the water in it turns to steam. In space, there's an additional challenge: steam doesn't rise, so the entire distillation system is spun to create artificial gravity to separate the steam from the brine. The water has been thoroughly tested on Earth, including blind taste tests that pitted recycled urine with similarly treated tap water. 'Some people may think it's downright disgusting, but if it's done correctly, you process water that's purer than what you drink here on Earth,' said Endeavour astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper."
closed eco-systems (Score:5, Interesting)
Earth is also a closed ecosystem where we breath in the burnt remains of food ingested by our neighbors, where tap water is derived from the same lakes and streams that animals use as public toilets. Just because the filtration occurs further away and uses some natural bedrock, doesn't make it any different.
Once you have just steam, it can no longer be considered urine, so drinking water is made from condensed steam
I for one plan on no longer partaking in this twisted backwards environment. Long ago I employed the oil companies to convince the ignorant masses to emit large quantities of CO2 - in an elaborate plot to raise global temperatures and melt the pristine icecaps which I will then route into my drinking water. Furthermore, I will destroy this insane ecosystem that exists in this evil urine drinking manner. You may wonder why I am willing to so freely say this, but what can you do about it? What can you do! mu-hahaha.
anyone know what we were talking about?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More like "not far enough" (Score:2, Interesting)
what is so hard to understand about a closed system?
1. Getting it to work properly in microgravity.
2. Doing so without taking up very much space or power, as both are in short supply on the ISS.
3. Getting it to work reliably, as it would be decidedly bad for this kind of thing to break down halfway to Mars.
Good lord, check out the name of pundit who has (Score:1, Interesting)
im not sure which fuckin reality im in, the one i know, or an alternate sci-fi universe.
Tell that to the guy (Score:3, Interesting)
Already featured in Crichton's "Congo" (1980) (Score:5, Interesting)
"This is our advanced technology unit" she said, lifting up a small backpack. "We've developed a miniaturized package for field parties; twenty pounds of equipment contains everything a man needs for two weeks:food, water, clothing, everything."
"Even water?" Elliot asked. Water was heavy: seven-tenths of human body weight was water, and most of the weight of food was water; that was why dehydrated food was so light.
But water was far more critical to human life than food. Men could survive for weeks without food, but they would die in a matter of hours without water. And water was heavy.
Ross smiled. "The average man consumes four to six liters a day, which is eight to thirteen pounds of weight. On a two-week expedition to a desert region, we'd have to provide two hundred pounds of water for each man. But we have a NASA water-recycling unit which purifies all excretions, including urine. It weighs six ounces. That's how we do it."
Seeing his expression, she said: "It's not bad at all. Our purified water is cleaner than what you get from the tap."
"I'll take your word for it."
A very necessary step (Score:5, Interesting)
If we're to survive as a species, in the long run, we have to get off this rock. Permanently. And unless we perfect some form of cryo-sleep or faster than light travel (possibly even if we DO perfect those), we're going to need some means of recycling our own waste products into usable substances.
I've been in situations where the only water available for drinking also happened to be the local wild animals' mudhole. Animal urine and fecal matter were most certainly present, but there was no other water for miles in any direction. So it was scooped up, run through a rag to skim off any solids, run through an activated charcoal filter to purify it, pumped full of iodine to kill any microbes that might have survived the charcoal filtration, then turned into koolaid to mask the taste. Survival situations will do wonders for changing what you are and are not willing to drink. I was fortunate that I had all that equipment for purification. Those living in third world nations don't have the option of stocking up at the local REI.
And I imagine space travelers heading for outer worlds, asteroid belts, or other star systems will have their options pretty limited as well :)
Re:disgusting? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Neat (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny you mention that. In a news segment on Canadian TV last year, there was a major deal between breweries being worked on.
So, a few reporters decided to ask local beer drinkers in pubs if the beer of either company was worthwhile. The answer 100% of the time: "I don't drink either - it upsets my stomach. Only imports!"
So maybe this association to the NAStronauts waste recycling program has some truth.
Re:Had a glass of water at Lake Tahoe CA? (Score:1, Interesting)
I once visited a treatment plant that had a waster water treatment back to back with a water treatment facility. The water came in from the sewer system was treated to the point where it was drinkable again then injected into a reservoir to be saved for future generations. The only reason why nobody was drinking it now is because of the psychological/political factor.
While visiting the final tank on the tour one of my fellow grad students, eager to demonstrate his confidence in the technology, grabbed a bucket that was laying around, scooped up some water and drank it. The rest of us urged him not to. "What?" he said, "The water is clean and it tastes fine."
To which I replied, "Yeah, but who knows where that bucket has been?"
Re:Neat (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup. Most computer keyboards have more fecal coliform on them than most toilet seats.
Re:Neat (Score:3, Interesting)
You know H and O don't stay inseparably linked for all eternity once they join up as H2O, right?
It's a dynamic, complex chemistry-filled world.
Re:Childish (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Neat (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm British, and the first time I came across this "no flush" was actually in ... Newport, Rhode Island! Apparently the hotel and local plumbing couldn't cope with the paper.
N.
Do you really think... (Score:3, Interesting)
... that the air you breathe or the water you drink or the food you eat hasn't already been through at least one set of lungs or digestive tract? The Last Breath of Caesar" [cuhk.edu.hk] calculation shows that every breath each of us takes likely contains 1 molecule of Caesar's Last Breath.
Similarly, every glass of water you drink has an average of 3.6x10^12 or 3.6 million million molecules of Titanic Water [www.zyra.tv] (water from the iceberg that sunk the Titanic).
From that link:
Their disclaimer is funny, too: "Special disclaimer: We do not advocate or condone the use of ICE in whisky, and it is merely used here for illustrative purposes. We also do not condone the sinking of ships, and acknowledge that the iceberg was not entirely to blame for the sinking of the Titanic."