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NASA Contractor Needs Urine
Apparently, NASA sent a memo to its employees at the Johnson Space Center asking for their urine so they, NASA, could use it to test the Orion space capsule. How much urine? 30 liters per day, including weekends. Disposal of urine for up to six months would be required if Orion is to work as planned.
Alert reader nettamere adds a link to story at Discovery.com, excerpting: "Donations will be treated with a chemical that can hold solid particulates in the liquid so they don't clog up the tubing in microgravity, said Leo Makowski, company spokesman for Hamilton Sundstrand, a contractor designing the new spaceship's toilet. ... "It's difficult to come up with a faux urine, explained NASA's Jim Lewis, the systems manager overseeing development of Orion's potty. 'That's why we depend on collections.'"
They must be taking the piss.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
NASA is beginning a secret drug testing program.
30 Liters per day? Damn...
In other news, Management at NASA has announced that coffee for employees will now not only be free, but mandatory.
It's just a wee amount to ask for.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Though I imagine the "eww..." factor would be pretty high, I'm surprised NASA isn't interested in developing a stillsuit-like technology a la Dune , where body fluids could be quickly converted to usable water for drinking or other purposes.
Perhaps the name says it all.
I, for one, welcome our new urine collecting overlords ...
Well that ought to take the piss out of the Orion project.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
all they need is to hold an on-going kegger. I'm sure they will have no problems in this area.
It's the Golden Age of Space Exploration!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
A professor I used to work for did research on the cryogenic preservation of sperm. The grad student who was working on this project wanted to run some initial tests, and we were not yet shipments of an appropriate animal substitute, so he acquired some samples himself.
In fact, this is all a part of NASA's effort to develop the most intensive watersports programs ever conceived...
Bow-ties are cool.
They are just trying to sap our precious bodily fluids!
Why not test the toilets with something that flows with a bit more difficulty in microgravity? If it could dispose of something thick, like canola oil, why not use that? That way when it goes up, it's guaranteed to suck down whatever the astronauts can throw at it.
The game.
Perfect reason to write a project proposal with a couple of million bucks in budget. All down the drain now with this kind of simple solution. Contractors are not going to be happy.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Is that per person? That's a lot..
Why can't they just use animal urine or synthetic urine?
-- :/
Wi-Fizzle Research..yeah it's a lame domain name
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
Why didn't they need urine when I had kidney stones. I could have supplied NASA with all the urine myself.
"Contractor Tells NASA To Piss Off"
Proverbs 21:19
Gene Rodenbury had it right huh?
For once the troll post is Insightful.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Mars Needs Women!
30 Liters a day? Man...if they don't manage to collect that, they're going to be pissed. What's even more disconcerting is that I'm sure the Number One guy at NASA is a wee bit worried about the results. He was overheard telling the Orion project manager, "You're in over your head on this one."
Hopefully additional information will be leaked so the true details of this story can be flushed out.
Someone call R Kelly!
Who is the lucky person at NASA who gets to receive all the urine they get and prep them?
I just sent my resume and a teaser bottle of piss.
I can manage that everyday.
You I guess you really do only rent the bottled water from the nasa cafe.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Interior smooth-looking office. Mr Feldman behind a desk, Mr Martin in front of it. Both point to a sign on the desk: 'Life Insurance Ltd'.
Martin: Good morning. I've been in touch with you about the, er, life insurance...
Feldman: Ah yes, did you bring the um ... the specimen of your um ... and so on, and so on?
Martin: Yes I did. It's in the car. There's rather a lot.
Feldman: Good, good.
Martin: Do you really need twelve gallons?
Feldman: No, no, not really.
Martin: Do you test it?
Feldman: No.
Martin: Well, why do you want it?
Feldman: Well, we do it to make sure that you're serious about wanting insurance, I mean, if you're not, you won't spend a couple of months filling up that enormous churn with mmm, so on and so on...
Martin: Shall I bring it in?
Feldman: Good Lord no. Throw it away.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Where are they going to store all that urine? I remember a study on pregnancy where they needed real urine, which apparently breaks down rather rapidly, so they kept it all in the fridge. It's a bit scary to think of NASA working out of a giant refrigerator of pee. And I feel sorry for the guy who got an advanced degree, got a job at NASA, and is now the pee handler.
Affordable Health Coverage
For once the troll post is Insightful.
I wish I could see it, but for some reason the GP is obscured. Clicking on the parent link doesn't reveal it either. :(
LAME!
"It's difficult to come up with a faux urine, explained NASA's Jim Lewis, the systems manager overseeing development of Orion's potty. 'That's why we depend on collections.'"
They can tell my sex, blood type, color of my eyes and hair, my favorite brand of cigarettes and my probability of being obese from a drop of my blood but they can't synthesize urine? Where there heck did things go so wrong?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
It's probably a covert drug test.
*puts on tinfoil hat*
Have you ever see the earth from space...on weed???
Did they specify a mailing address?
Maybe they're just looking to cut costs? Yellow River Synthetic Urine is available for $12 for 90cc. Computes to about $4000/day for their needs. https://www.whizzinator.com/order.html (NSFW)
Just give out free beer on any university ...
I'm going to tell me son to look into this. He was pretty excited recently when he discovered he could sell his semen for $250 a pop.
His urine might not fetch as much but he's got more of it.
Wow... wait... is this life, imitating video games? There's a character in Penny Arcade: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness that would, no doubt, be delighted to assist them with this, err. . scientific study.
Actually, there were no bathrooms shown in Star Trek, unless you count a Sonic Shower in Enterprise -- and most Trekkies would like to forget Enterprise ever existed.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Never have so many given so much for so few...
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
"Including Weekends" - I probably drop 30 liters of piss most weekends. Now I have something to do with all of it.
How much pee do they need? This looks like a job for beer!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Okay, i've got this bottle filled. Where do I mail it?
I can't believe nobody's made a Uranus joke yet. Urine. Uranus.
Yellow Scientist needs Urine Badly!
...thats what the broad was doing with the diaper on that road trip...
The more I learn about Windows the more I am surprised it runs at all
Of course, this is not the first large scale industrial use of urine. A venerable brand of pharmacy industry estrogen replacement treatment for women ( Premarin) is made from vast quantities of horse (pregnant mare) urine. The horses spend their pregnancy hooked to a catheter. There are lots of synthetic versions now, of course.
So why do they even need to ask their workers? NASA owns some very large buildings.... just replace all of the urinals with waterless ones, and collect the output. Each sample is not uniquely identifiable so there would be no privacy concerns. Many of the buildings are run 24/7 so weekends aren't an issue.
...for the first mission to Uranus.
The original memo is online here http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/07/dont_flush_dona.html
This was a better deal in the good old days before law suits ruined everyones fun. For developing the shuttle toilet (ISS uses the russian toilet) there were company sanctioned keg parties after hours in the company park to help the collection along. True story. This was at the CT site, before the TX existed.
The article doesn't get into much more than the toilet, but the full cycle will be to feed that into WCS (waste collection system) which will then go into the OGA (ox gen assembly), with end result being O2 to breath and H which will probably be tossed overboard unless they decide to add the sabatier unit to it which will take CO2 and H (plus catalysts)to produce water and methane. The theory behind it is that up to 90% of the O2 needed for a trip to Mars can be gotten from personal water intake and humidity.
So why not just set up some porta-potty type collection units in a few restrooms, with the urinal draining to a refrigerated storage unit? Why ask people to pee into a bottle?
...though I am likely too late.
In Soviet Russia, urine needs NASA!
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
This is just an elaborate cover story for their secret plan to drug test all of their engineers after the meters to feet conversion accident.
Just pay someone to sit around and drink beer all day.
Well, at least the don't need Uranus.
Sure, elephant urine isn't the same as human urine, but for these purposes it might fill the need.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
.. "Theres and little part of me in that Orion capsule, sonny" ..... "Awww.. Crap granddad.. not that story again."
Aw, good times .. I cant wait.
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
You just need to capture people's interest.
How about calling the program "Mars Needs Urine"?
... if they collect all of this urine, is there not a job that requires someone pour all of it into the toilet?.... I guess, could you say that it really is a piss pour job?
Is this really a realistic test? Wouldn't space urine have a significantly different composition based on the restricted diet of a long journey?
So if they were about to carry vacuum test, they would ask employees to take something away from lab and take a deep breath?
R. Kelly
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
Just put a couple women in a car and have them drive around. Every time they need to stop and pee, have them collect it. As they will need to stop about every two or three minutes and they must produce something significant each time they stop (although, I must admit, I've never actually verified they really do pee on each "rest stop" - I sometimes wonder how they could), they will have the required eight gallons per day in just a couple hours.
(One of life's mysteries - what is it about getting in a car that causes women to feel a need to pee every five minutes?)
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Well, in the weekend I probably can deliver, but the workdays -- no.
HA! HA! JOHNSON!!1!
/peener
//how come fark gets slashies?
/// - these are maybe farkies?
"Be right back guys, gotta perform some NASA-level rocket science"
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
I'm not sure if I would be amused or scared if they subsequently found out (in orbit?) that the system seized up with untainted product and they therefore either had to feed their astronauts dope, to get the right formula for the urine plant - or add another chemical (on top of the particle de-clogger) to simulate the drugs.
Hmmm.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
He should just go to the grocery store and pick up some Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Prove it.
Do they already have tons of it?
Darn! My crazy uncle passed away last month. If he was around, he'd say, "I knew all those jars of urine I saved would have come in handy." And we'd already thrown them out.
Well there's always Oktoberfest.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Occasionally I have to do a 24-hour urine collection for my doctor. In 24 hours I usually collect about 1.2-1.4 liters.
You figure 30 people should be able to generate that much, no problem.
Men can get paid to perform a medical service: donating reproductive material. They are not paid for sexual pleasure - they will probably have some but they could have done that without the cash.
It's the buying and selling of direct sexual pleasure that is illegal. You can buy movies that lead to pleasure, that's fine. Or you can buy condoms for use during sexual pleasure, fine too. You can pay someone to fondle your genitals as long as it's in a situation without sexual intent, e.g. a medical exam.
And our tax dollars are funding this? The government treats us like peons more and more every day don't they.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_rLSZQOOG0
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
This just proves that NASA is a piss poor organization.
"Operation Goldenflow"... (for urinalysis, as described by Sailors...)
But, at first, I thought a contractor required this urine. SO, if they have a performance clause involved, and don't/can't get enough, will they be subject to fines for "piss-poor performance"? (LOL!)
Also, reminds me of "Prior proper planning prevents piss-poor performance"...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This guy is number one in the field!
Years ago, I'd heard/read that in the 70's, NASA had pilots who were regularly under effects of jet lag due to their constant flying from coast to coast or Canaveral to JSC/SOCAL... Supposedly, the solution became an embarrassing one, and they (NASA) used national security markings to cover up the solution. The solution? LOTS AND LOTS of sex... to discharge their bodies like batteries getting reconditioning. Interesting, to me, considering that many laptops' users keep the batteries in while using AC. One laptop expert said to remove the battery, but, i don't. I never know when power will fail, and one bonus of a laptop is the battery acts as a power backup for me, more than it acts as a power supply.
As for the sex worker brought in for exams... imagine trying to explain THAT to cops...
As for the prostate, I wonder if some of these engineers perform P2P-DRE (Peer-to-Peer Digital Rectal Exams)... could add some intense camaraderie to the team...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Plants love urine if it is diluted with water at between 5-10:1. Seriously. I have been using it on all of my plants in an effort to cut down costs on fertilizer and to reduce toilet flushes. Urine contains almost all nutrients that plants need: nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and lots of micronutrients and B vitamins. My plants are flourishing on the stuff.
Well, NASA *could* try using a modified salad spinner for the solids, and use Brita for the liquids. Mash-up the two, and let sit
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Wait til NASA starts asking for "Modified Cow Sweat".... After all, milk comes from a mammary gland/sweat gland right? After my plant biology teacher told us that back in 88 (making virtually every girl in the class go "ewwwwww"), I severely cut back on milk. Now, i only use it for cooking or for macaroni, but not for drinking by the glass.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Now you're just going to have to hold it until we get back.
This is what I like to Call the NASA tax :)
Curious about Storage and Virtualization? Check out
Put a bunch of monkeys in a cage with a hose attached to their you-know-what and collect it all day long. Why do they need human volunteers for this?
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
In order to drink enough to piss 30 liters a day, you'd have to drink way more than 30 liters of water, which would seem to put you at risk for water intoxication. I hope nobody dies trying to do this!
Actually, the need for pee is nothing new. In Victorian textile production pee was a good mordant (a dye fixative) In Bradford, England - which was once the greatest worsted producer in the world - you used to have a pee-man who'd go around each morning collecting the stuff. Families would leave their night time stuff on the doorstep and the pee-man would collect it. You'd get a few pennies for your "troubles".
How much urine? 30 liters per day, including weekends.
Kegger at NASA! Wo-ho!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
http://www.whizzinator.com/
I've known of that since High School. Guess that's why they call it "high". :)
--Toll_Free
At least NASA isn't pissing into the wind now!
I'm sure another one is just around the corner, especially if they give free beer...
From the article: The memo seeking daily contributions from July 21 to July 31 was not meant to go public, he said. Yeah, you really think "NASA asks for urine" is not gonna hit the news?
...so read this long, rambling post only if you have an interest in aircraft and aviation. You have been warned.
Your comment reminded me of an incident that occurred at Miami International when I worked there in 1980-82. Some background: I worked on the north side of the airport for an FBO (handler of private and corporate aircraft) and I didn't know it at the time, but MIA had quite a reputation among aviation buffs for the large number of classic aircraft parked all over the north side, including any number of DC-3's, and incredibly, a Lockheed Constellation parked at "Corrosion Corner", the northwest corner near the fire station. When a private collector (rumored to be John Travolta) bought it and flew it out, there were hundreds of people lined up with cameras to see the stately old beauty take to the air after years sitting on the ramp. Disappointingly, I only knew it was leaving when I saw it climbing gracefully away, and so didn't get a picture of this magnificent aircraft; I never imagined that I'd ever see one flying.
The north side, the entire length of which bordered NW 36th Street, was home to dozens of -quite literally- fly-by-night operations; charter companies ranging in size from small operations with one or two light twins, up through outfits with old DC-3's still in perfect operating condition, to larger cargo operations with jets, mostly DC-8's. The smaller, one and two plane outfits operated mostly between South Florida and the Bahamas, almost exclusively at night. More on that in a bit.
Next door to where I worked, one of these charter companies had a single, beautifully-maintained DC-3, and one morning while I was inspecting the ramp, I glanced at the bird and noticed that there were enormous holes in the belly of the aircraft. Turns out that the night before, they had been flying a cargo of old car batteries when they encountered severe turbulence, and the batteries started leaking all over the cabin. They didn't notice the damage until they had actually landed and parked the aircraft, at which time they saw the ground through the huge, corroded holes, and found that the control lines had been almost completely eaten through. If they had kept flying for another ten minutes or so, they would have crashed.
At the time I worked there, the "Cocaine Cowboys" (the Medellin and Cali cartels) were just coming up to speed. "Miami Vice" had just come on the air, but some of the stuff I saw at the airport would have been laughed off as unbelievable if it had been in the script of the TV series. Miami in general, and Miami International in particular, was swimming in cocaine. MIA is the major gateway for Latin American carriers into the U.S., and in those days before the widespread crack epidemic, a day didn't go by without some major drama, and there was a wild, almost frontier feel to the north side, with all the goings-on at these little (and big) operations. The difference between charter and cargo ops, and the much more genteel terminal, with the bars and bookstores and the palm trees in the parking lots, was as stark as night and day, and most commercial passengers had absolutely zero clue that such a seedy underbelly existed.
- Ever seen 6,000 pounds of cocaine in one place? [raises hand] Air Panama DC-8, gift-wrapped in streamers of yellow crime scene tape, parked next door to our office. The three tons of coke were stuffed into freezers in the cargo hold. Feds crawled all over everybody for weeks. I used to work the midnight shift, and so got quite familiar with many of the charter pilots who were in and out in the wee hours of the morning, on their "cargo" flights to the Bahamas. Imagine my shock when one of them handed me a kilo of cocaine one night, just because I was always polite and courteous to him (hell, I was polite and courteous to everybody; some scary folks frequented north side). He was
Isn't it oddly fitting that NASA's Johnson facility wants urine? What's next, a company in the Tetons needing milk?
Now if only our automobile makers could come up with ways to use urine as a fuel, we'd be cooking with GAS!
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -Mahatma Ghandi
"NASA employees DO give a piss"
It's not your ur-ion, it's my-ion!
proud caffeine whore
To piss like you've never pissed before!
I'll eat asparagus before I take a pee and donate. Hell, maybe we can solve our fuel problems using piss.
"Without curiosity and knowledge, the mind is a vast void. Without the mind, curiosity and knowledge are nonexistent."
The Orion Space Station isn't ferris-wheel -shaped, is it?
(And I'm not posting the source for the joke, because that would spoil...oh hell, yes I will.)
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
So Lisa Nowak was just doing her bit for sample collection? Reinstate that brave space cadet!
Much more frightening than any of the drug dealers was the cargo operation across the street from our office, which was a front for an arms dealer. He owned a bunch of Boeing 707 cargo jets (and a 727 with a tricked-out interior for his private use), all parked at a beautiful state-of-the-art hangar which had his office on the top floor. By sheer, blind coincidence one of his bodyguards was actually a childhood acquaintance from my hometown, and he used to come by my house occasionally for a beer, and we'd trade stories of the bizarre goings-on on MIA north side. His boss was one of the largest weapons dealers on the planet and actually had long lists of people who wanted him dead, so consequently always traveled in an armored Benz with an entourage of bodyguards. Such was his legitimate fear of assassination that he had in the hangar an elevator into which his chauffeur would drive his car, and which would take the car directly up into his office. He didn't dare take the chance that someone could gain access to his car in the parking lot and install a bomb.
This gentleman was Syrian or Lebanese if I remember correctly, had extensive contacts in the Middle East, and played both sides of the fence with equal facility (one of his jets had to be escorted to safety in the Gulf by Israeli F-4's after being threatened by Iranian fighters). From what I understand, much of his business was in South and Central America, hence his Miami HQ. He was in a vastly more lucrative business than any mere cartel leader could imagine, and dealt legitimately with governments on a scale that would make a coke dealer green with envy. What's more, he did a LOT of work for Uncle Sam when plausible deniability was called for, so he was in absolutely no danger of being shut down by the feds. I later heard that he had been the factotum in the Iran-Contra Scandal, the party who had actually procured and shipped the Stinger missiles to Iran. Just this direct glimpse into the dirty side of global politics made a huge impression on me. Before that, it really had been an abstract concept, things you only read about, but to hear first-hand some of the things that governments are capable of was horrifying and abhorrent. Gangsters are saints compared to some of our elected officials.