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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.'"
It's also about the corrosion, and the solids that gunk up the line over time.
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In Enterprise they had normal water showers. Sonic showers were mentioned in the others.
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The original memo is online here http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/07/dont_flush_dona.html
so he acquired some samples himself
It could be worse... At least he did not have to masturbate a pig (last link is probably NSFW).
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?