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Urine Passes NASA Taste Test
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."
However, I don't think anybody wants to drink this warm, so better make that piss frosty.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
...no one can hear you steam. Your piss.
Space is a horrible place.
Dont mind him, he's just takin' the piss.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
turn today's brownies into tomorrow's brownies
I'd be worried if they were attempting this and they didn't take the recycling far enough.
How do you know it wasn't actually Budweiser?
"Here I'll put a blind fold on you and.. there you go, ok now drink this delicious fluid." "Hmmm its water, but it doesnt taste like tap water, it tastes filtered. Aquafina?" "No, pee" *PHHHttt*
How do you know it wasn't actually Budweiser?
Because he only puked for an hour!
Actually, the home version is a few miles down the road, typically.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Your rational response is too much for the morons in the mainstream media and (unsurprisingly) Slashdot submitters/editors to parse.
Try to keep your analysis to something a little more apropriate for a grade 3 class, please. I mean in a story that is about conserving resources, ensuring safety, and pushing humans-in-space technology forward, how are you going to draw attention to your story if you don't pander to bathroom humour and sexual innuendo?
We don't need your kind around here, elitist.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
well, you drink it as urine.
No, I'm New Here
Gee whiz, that was a bad joke.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
ah, nice to see ageism is alive and well. leave the poor young bugger alone, it's not his fault he was born recently
Yes it is. It reminds me of a great put down on some forum. "Since you were born after Star Wars I have no interest in your opinion on this matter, or of anything else"
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I agree. It was in bad taste.
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
"Wow, what a dedicated employee! No bathroom breaks, just sitting working endlessly at his computer with at tube from his pants to this mouth."