Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

muggs was one of several readers to note a fluffy piece making the rounds about an astronaut inventing a zero-g coffee cup. Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine, I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.

Comments

Should be okay...

[tsotha]

...as long as they don't eat too much asparagus.

Re:Should be okay...

[impaledsunset]

Well, if you run into any problems, you could always the intergalactic laxative.

Re:Should be okay...

[gnick]

2astronauts1cup?

In zero-G no less. Ugh.

Re:Should be okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, god, it's EVERYWHERE!!

Re:Should be okay...

[db32]

You have been chosen to be executed in the most disturbing and painful way possible for crimes against humanity.

Re:Should be okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god! its full of... of... WAAAAHHH *pukes*

'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Channard]

'But it *is* piss, Buzz.' 'Oh good, so it's not just me.' Apologies to Austin Powers.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[MozeeToby]

What's the big deal about drinking recycled urine? I guess I just don't get it; pure water is pure water, regardless of what was in it in the past (unless, I sopose, you believe in homeopathic medicine). Statistically, I bet most of the water you drink has gone through a fellow human being at some point or another, what's the big deal?

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Anonymous Coward]

The logic error you make is classic. It boils down to this old saying : "In theory, practice and theory are the same, in practice they are different". It all boils down to how much faith you have in the perfection of the system that purifies the water.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Hankenstein]

        Similar to the comment above me.... I live in Colorado, what do all you people in Vegas think
you are drinking? Or for the other side of the continental divide, Denver's filtered wastwater
heads downstream to eventually end up in Kansas City. New Orleans appears to be the endpoint,
glancing at a map, which could explain why alcohol consumption is large there.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Analogy Man]

Yes indeed we are all drinking the pee of something or another. The only exception would be fossil water that predates life forms or comes from places that have never had them - like comets.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[TheThiefMaster]

I expect it to be cleaner and safer to drink than water piped from an open reservoir through pipes buried in the ground that may or may not be leaking.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Plasmagrid]

I used to live in Vt, and my well came from the river 2oo yds from the house. Like previous readers stated your drinking pee from someone or thing at some pnt. Heck figure most animals and hunters pee in the woods or river in the mountains and it gets filtered naturally on it's way down from the moss on the rocks and through the sand beds.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[berend botje]

You can drink your own pee, quite safely. It is sterile, after all.

And, after it cools down, the taste isn't bad either, I can tell you.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Anonymous Coward]

Statistically, I bet most of the water you drink has gone through a fellow human being at some point or another, what's the big deal?

Freshness.
Statistically, all of the water you'll encounter in your entire life was pissed in by dinosaurs.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just sad...

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[smellsofbikes]

I've read some interesting psychology research done on humans and how they value, and transfer, the concept of filth. It's not logical, and it's pervasive.
The basic experiment works like this: you offer the subject two pieces of chocolate. One looks like a bar of chocolate. The other looks like a turd. You ask the subject which one is preferable, and what value it has over the other ("Would you eat the turd over the bar for $1?") Another version, that measures how the brain transfers filth, offers two cups of tea, one stirred with a spoon, the other with a brand-new just-removed-from-package flyswatter. People place a measurable, significant value on the object that isn't associated with filth, even if there isn't actually any filth there. It's just the perception. People mentally mark things as dirty/unhealthy/nasty, and then mark anything that's been touched by those things as similarly filthy. You can measure how much people think types of contact dilute filth ("five-second rule!") and how they perceive filth degrading over time.

And the somewhat ironic thing is that fresh urine is one of the more sterile materials out there. There are orders of magnitude less nasty infectous beasts in a nice frosty cuppa pee than in someone's saliva.

But that doesn't make people like it any better.

It horrifies many people when they go on bike rides along the river and see the waste treatment plants dumping water out into the river upstream of other cities. They realize those other cities are drinking their pee, and they in turn are drinking someone else's pee. I guess that before that point, they think that waste just *vanishes* somehow. Personally, I've often looked at watershed drainage maps and calculated how many people water has been through when it gets to, eg Des Moines compared to Black Hawk, Colorado. (I estimate 4 animals, maybe 1 person, for Black Hawk, and more like 30-70 animals/people for Des Moines.)

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[popsicle67]

Every drop of water on earth has been through someone's or somethings bladder. 3 billion years is a long time to stay a virgin.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[shaitand]

That water you are referring to is tap water. If I recall correctly my TDS meter showed it to be roughly 99.9996% pure but most people won't drink it anymore. On the other hand, my bottled water measures in at 99.99998% pure.

The crazy thing. I've double blind taste tested a couple people and they could consistently tell the difference. It's fascinating that humans can detect such minute variations in water. Its obvious why we developed it, but still fascinating.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[GooberToo]

You can drink your own pee, quite safely. It is sterile, after all.

I've seen so many people say this but most do not understand what it really means.

Urine is sterile before it leaves the bladder; and then that's only usually - not always. That's it. If you have bacterial contamination in your urethra, your urine is now contaminated too. If you have a bladder infection, your bladder is also infected - even in the bladder. Mild infections which naturally pass in a couple of days are not uncommon. This is especially true if you are sexually active. Especially so if you are a sexually active female.

Also, if you are dehydrated, urine is not safe to drink. This is because the contaminates extracted from your body are no longer dilute enough and you are now poisoning your self with a concentrated form of whatever your body previously removed from your body - which may now overload your kidneys. Given some 40%+ of the US general population is at least mildly dehydrated, consuming one's own urine is risky. Furthermore, urine which is not clear, should *never* be consumed.

One should never drink urine unless your life hangs in the balance, as otherwise compromising your health and kidneys may be the price you pay. If no water is available, drinking urine is acceptable but only so long as it remains clear.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Markspark]

and that would be highly unlikely. The water you are referring to is called Distilled/DeIonized water and is a really bad idea to drink in any larger quantities, as it screws with your electrolyte balance, and can cause death.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a bladder infection, your bladder is also infected - even in the bladder.

Are you sure?

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[mr_mischief]

You want to know where my city's drinking water comes from? A river. You want to know where the city's sewer system empties into? The same river. It's treated before we drink it and it's treated before it's put back. I happen to live along a very long river, and nearly all the cities and towns upstream and downstream do the exact same thing. Water is water. Either it's pure enough or it isn't.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Kooty-Sentinel]

This is especially true if you are sexually active. Especially so if you are a sexually active female.

On Slashdot....? C'mon, choose your audiences more carefully :P

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[shaitand]

The water I am referring to is treated with reverse osmosis and carbon filtering. I have been drinking it for years.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Lost Race]

The water you are referring to is called Distilled/DeIonized water and is a really bad idea to drink in any larger quantities, as it screws with your electrolyte balance, and can cause death.

That is laughably false. Where do people get such ideas?

Tap water usually contains trace amounts of minerals such as calcium and magnesium, which are all necessary for the human metabolism. But those minerals are also available in food; unless you already have a deficiency (or are borderline) the distilled water won't make any difference. In any event, a daily multi-mineral supplement will make up the difference. If you're already taking a supplement you definitely don't need the minerals in tap water.

Electrolyte balance, sheesh. Sounds like maybe you've confused mineral deficiency with water intoxication, which is exactly the same whether you overdose on distilled water or tap water.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Anonymous Coward]

soon they'll invent a way to turn turd into purified cookies

I suppose you'll be the guy eating recycled turd in front of the camera saying they taste great

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Alarindris]

It's like how my girlfriend chastises for not washing my hands after I pee, but has no problems giving me a blowjob without first dunking my schlong in bleach.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Anonymous Coward]

But that doesn't make people like it any better.

There may be other reasons for that, too, though. Seriously, have you ever drank piss? I have, and it's really quite like drinking very warm (body temperature) salt water.

Well, probably not surprising, given that that's more or less exactly what it IS.

In any case, it's not pleasant in the slightest. When I tried it, I didn't care about the "yuck" factor since I knew it was sterile, anyway, but it just tastes horrible.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[alecwood]

But why bother?

As humans we evolved to intake water out of muddy holes in the ground, not to worry about the mineral contaminant that remains after treatment.

Maybe a few more impurities in our water and food, and exposure to a few more germs and viruses in our infancy, and our immune systems wouldn't be so weak we can get felled for a week by an extreme allergic reaction to a single hair from a cute and fluffy kitten passing the end of our street.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[alecwood]

I seem to recall it being quite fashionable among certain groups in California during the 80's

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Anonymous Coward]

the taste isn't bad either, I can tell you.

What's your address?

I'd like to send you some of mine.
Don't worry; I shall refrain from eating asparagus beforehand.
Or for that matter, any Pinoqachole.
-
I need experts!
To see if my sterile effluents meet the wel-known rigorous /. taste tests!

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[GooberToo]

Was supposed to read, "If you have a bladder infection, your urine is also infected - even in the bladder."

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[MidnightBrewer]

Sterile is not the same as non-poisonous. Urine contains things your body didn't want in the first place (i.e. urea); putting them back in is counter-productive.

I'm not against the urine purification idea at all, just the idea of people preaching that it's okay to drink their own urine.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[smellsofbikes]

'poison' is overstating it a bit. We urinate to get rid of ammonia produced from the metabolism of excess proteins. We turn it into urea. Birds turn it into uric acid, fish just dump it overboard. Since it's a waste product, it's obviously not *good* for us, but I've met people, mostly crabby weird old men, who regularly drink their own urine. They claim it makes them live longer. (I think it just makes it SEEM like they're living longer. Or maybe it's the eat-live-goldfish-first-thing-in-morning so nothing worse will happen all day.) But I knew a crazy old coot who was 92 and claimed that he'd been drinking his own urine for like 80 years or something insane like that. Ugh, double or maybe even triple ugh, but apparently not deadly.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Lost Race]

I wouldn't go out of my way to distill my rather clean tap water for drinking purposes, but if my only choices were nasty bacteria-and-toxin-ridden puddle water vs distilled water, I'd go for the distilled and not worry about OMG MAGICKAL ELECTROLYTES! DEATH!

I see this ridiculous "distilled water = deadly poison" meme propagated often enough that I'm worried people are going to prefer dehydration or pollution and cause themselves serious health problems.

Maybe a few more impurities in our water and food, and exposure to a few more germs and viruses in our infancy, and our immune systems wouldn't be so weak we can get felled for a week by an extreme allergic reaction to a single hair from a cute and fluffy kitten passing the end of our street.

If such a policy could indeed make the human race more resistant to disease and allergy, it would do so mainly by culling out the weak during infancy and early childhood. The usual response to such proposals is, "You go first." I'm not convinced it would have the desired outcome at all, even if we were willing to tolerate higher infant mortality rates.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[alecwood]

OK, I agree that taking it to excess could cause the mortality you suggest, but that's not what I'm talking about.

During infancy in particular, exposure to low levels of the various everyday pathogens is what programs our immune system to recognise threat and deal with it appropriately. I'd argue that our current obsession with using anti-bacterial cleaners etc at every opportunity denies our infants this exposure, and thus makes us more prone to allergy and disease in later life. I don't think it's coincidence that our obsession with ever increasing levels of "clean" seems to follow the trend of ever increasing allergies etc.

When I was a young I used to wonder at why the problem of allergies seemed much more prevalent in the US than over here in the UK. But now, as we have embraced the US trend for seeking to make every aspect of our children's environment as sterile as an operating theatre, we see many more young adults complaining of allergies, and asthma too. I'm not suggesting this is the cause of all allergies or all asthma, but maybe, since these are effectively malfunctions of the immune response, there's a causal link, and the common thinking which has driven our over use of these chemicals comes from the attitudes prevalent in the many posts herein propagating the "distilled water = deadly poison" myth.

Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..'

[Markspark]

thank you for correcting my misconceptions, i stand corrected. :)

Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, but..

[Kagura]

From the fucking article (don't worry, I didn't actually read any of it):

He used a piece of plastic ripped from his Flight Data File mission book and folded it into a teardrop-shape that's closed at one end. Surface tension inside the cup keeps the coffee from floating out and running amuck.

"The way this works is, the cross section of this cup looks like an airplane wing," he said. "The narrow angle here will wick the coffee up."

The result: space coffee in a zero-G cup.

The theory behind the novel coffee cup is the same one used by rockets to draw fuel into their engines while flying through weightless conditions in space, Pettit said.

The Russians figured it out first.

[MaxwellEdison]

They just drink pencils.

Re:The Russians figured it out first.

[Jabbrwokk]

Ohhh, snap you beat me to it! Well played.

Re:The Russians figured it out first.

[Bemopolis]

You just made lead shoot out of my nose.

Re:The Russians figured it out first.

[ravrazor]

Alright, I'll cave: Actually, in Soviet Russia, the pencils drink you.

Re:The Russians figured it out first.

[overcaffein8d]

and all this time i thought it was corkscrews

Re:The Russians figured it out first.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, pencils drink you!

What are the odds

[Critical Facilities]

Imagine, a guy with the name muggs would have the inside scoop on this story.

Re:What are the odds

[Critical Facilities]

d'oh, I mean muggs.

Apologies to muggs for inadvertantly filling his inbox

Re:What are the odds

[networkBoy]

you just guaranteed someone a ton of e-mail...

Joe job?

What do you think you drink on Earth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you import virgin hydrogen and oxygen from a supernova, the water you had this morning has been through several organisms...

Re:What do you think you drink on Earth?

[SBacks]

Ewww... drinking recycled waste from a star? None for me, thanks.

I collect particles created at Fermilab and turn them into H and O, then combine them to make water.

Re:What do you think you drink on Earth?

[Kleen13]

the water you had this morning has been through several organisms...

LOL, I read that as orgasms.... would anyone here hesitate drinking it then? I mean it is pure water after all...

Re:What do you think you drink on Earth?

[severoon]

As unbelievable as your jest may seem, if you spend a few minutes with Google I'm sure you can find plenty of examples with people doing just that, sans any kind of water treatment plant.

Re:What do you think you drink on Earth?

[Dolohov]

... with a lot less filtering, too.

Re:What do you think you drink on Earth?

[glittalogik]

Sorry man, I higged all over your boson... are you gonna drink that?

So what?

[Deadstick]

Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine

And, ummm, who doesn't? Most of us just have a bigger recycling plant than they do.

rj

Re:So what?

[jonadab]

> Most of us just have a bigger recycling plant than they do.

My thoughts exactly. Distillation is distillation, whether it takes place in the natural hydrological cycle or a man-made apparatus; chemically, exactly the same thing is happening. Rainwater *is* recycled muck. Mud, swamp water, human urine, cow saliva, chicken blood, seawater, pond water, you name it, if it's at all common and has some water in it, the water you drink every day has been there in the past. So what? It's water now. Steep some tea leaves in it for a moment or two and you've got yourself a beverage.

Re:So what?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And, ummm, who doesn't? Most of us just have a bigger recycling plant than they do.

And much less efficient too.

Re:So what?

[Deadstick]

A really interesting engineering statistics exercise is to estimate the probability that a given glass of water does NOT contain any H2O molecules that were pissed by Julius Caesar...

rj

a new viral theme coming-up ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

"(...) since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine (...) "

2 astronauts 1 cup...

Two Astronauts....

[Itninja]

...One Cup.

/retch/

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[Abreu]

I'm having a bit of trouble picturing this... is it like drinking out of an erlenmeyer flask?

Desperate Measures...

[TheNecromancer]

an astronaut inventing a zero-g coffee cup.

Someone needs to switch to decaf, I'm thinking...

Re:Desperate Measures...

[MaxwellEdison]

All kidding aside, it takes the little innovations like this to make prolonged stays in space bearable. At the very least it removes Capri Sun's stranglehold over drink service for space tourism flights.

Zero G Coffee Cup

[mfh]

This is by far the coolest thing I have ever seen. I want one for my home and office. I can then drink coffee while hanging upside-down from the ceiling doing meditative reflexology. If Nirvana could exist within reach of this torrid mortal coil, this zero-g coffee mug has extended a very tempting invitation!

Re:Zero G Coffee Cup

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that your home and office probably have, you know, gravity. As cool as that would be, gravity would trump over the capillar effect and your coffee would end up on the floor. Posting anonymously because of mod points.

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also pictures in the article to get a good idea of what he means.

Especially since the machine is busted...

[Bearhouse]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/23/america/shuttle.php

Hope they've got a good, strong blend!

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[snowraver1]

I'm having a bit of trouble picturing this...

... Which is why there is a video in TFA.

I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the source will be released in Java?

Ignorant summary writer.

[Jason1729]

Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine, I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup. And just what do you think that fresh spring water or tap water you're drinking is? There's been life on this planet for 3 billion years, every drop of water has been recycled urine more times than your human brain is able to comprehend.

The only real difference on the space station is that they do a much better job of purifying and testing the water than nature does.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[jambox]

I doubt there's been enough life on this planet drinking and p*ssing for long enough that you could state with any confidence that each and every water molecule on the planet had at one time passed through some creature?

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[maxume]

Every drop? Prove it.

Take special care with water that has recently fallen from space (ya know, from meteorites).

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[fishbowl]

A gallon of wine with a drop of piss is a gallon of piss. QED.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't say every molecule, he said every drop. There are a great number of molecules of water in a drop - All being mixed around like mad. Most likely, every drop of fresh water you can find has at least some recycled content.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Loibisch]

Have fun drinking your meteor nectar, I'll still resort to tap water.

Way to miss the point, sheesh...

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[maxume]

The post called out the ignorant summary writer in an ignorant fashion. It was begging for a hair splitting correction.

I drink tap water all the time. Hell, I'm not uncomfortable with all the solid human waste that ends up being used as fertilizer. Sometimes, when I'm out in the woods, I take a piss and then eat food without washing my hands (someone I was with called me out on this and I laughed in their face, so "so does everybody else" apparently doesn't apply).

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure some animal has took a leak in one of those sources and there is urine floating around in the water all the time, fish... animals in the woods, humans dumping sewage, humans in the woods... aliens in the woods...... bears... damn bears

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[kmac06]

OK since I'm a nerd I did some off-the-cuff, very approximate calculations. Say the total water consumption by living creatures is equivalent to 100 billion humans, who each consume a gallon a day, and have been doing so for a billion years. That gives (100 billion humans)*(1 billion years)*(1 gallon/human/day)*(365 days/year) = 3.65*10^16 gallons consumed. Compare this to the 3.26*10^17 gallons of water on the Earth.

Given how wildly inaccurate I'm sure my assumptions are, I guess this doesn't really prove anything (other than that I'm a nerd). I was hoping there'd be like four order's of magnitude difference one way or the other.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I am sure some animal has took a leak in one of those sources and there is urine floating around in the water all the time, fish... animals in the woods, humans dumping sewage, humans in the woods... aliens in the woods...... bears... damn bears

Don't forget the Pope, damn Popes always shitting in the woods.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Think plancton: Millions by cubic meter. So yes, every drop. Every drop. Many times.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Omkar]

There are around 6 billion humans, so this would make the total water consumption equal to around 16 times the human population.

I started out writing this post on how this number is way too low, but it's actually more reasonable than you might think. I do think it's off by an order of magnitude (but I thought it was off by at least 5).

Assume water consumption is roughly proportional to mass. The rest is based on wiki Biomass article. From the "domestic biomass = 700 mill tonnes = 1% of earths biomass" estimate a total biomass of 7*10^10 tonnes. Say a third of that is from animals (there are a lot of small critters in the sea, so maybe), so we have around 2*10^10 tonnes animal biomass. 6 billion humans = 1*10^8 tonnes biomass, so we're talking the equivalent of 1200 billion humans, ie, around 10 times your estimate. So that would make the two quantities even closer.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Anonymous Coward]

If by 'human' you mean 'multi-cellular organism' then yes, 1 billion years is an accurate time period. Actual 'humans', that is, homo sapiens sapiens have been around much less; about 0.2 million years. If you include single cellular organism that were present when there were meaningful amounts of water becoming present on Earth (yes, all that nasty bacteria and fungi things that have been leaving their waste products in your water), that would be about 3 billion years.

As to the population statistic, personally I am not certain that any meaningful numbers could be speculated. Suffice to say, all water would have had some sort of waste in it at some point - the numbers of single cellular organisms trump all. And besides, water/oxygen is a waste product too, doncha know.

In any case, humans like impurities in their water. What particular blend of said impurities vary, but nobody likes distilled (pure! omg) water. And if you say you do/ know someone who does... Well, I'm not saying you don't exist, I'm saying I don't believe you.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 4 orders of magnitude?
  Let's take your numbers. The probability that a particular molecule has not had one trip through someone/something is ~.9. So in 1 gallon the odds are that all the molecules are 'fresh' is .9^(10^26), which is about 10^(-10^24)

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Jason1729]

Thank you. Even for the one drop it's only a few orders of magnitude off of your gallon.

And I don't think his numbers are even close, I would guess the real water consumption is much larger. Generally, the smaller the organism the faster the metabolism. An 80 kg human may use a gallon of water a day. 80 kg of plankton would use a lot more than that. An elephant weighing 20 times as much a person doesn't need to drink 20 times the water. And taken over the past 3 billion years or so, most of the biomass that has existed on this planet has been single cellular and tiny multi-cellular.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[Jason1729]

He meant "human equivalent amount of biomass". But I don't think his number is anywhere near accurate because organisms don't use a constant amount of water per kilogram of mass regardless of size or any other factor, and humans are certainly not representative of all life that has existing on Earth for the past 3 billion years.

Re:Ignorant summary writer.

[maxume]

Much of the consumption is going to be of water that was very recently urine, so there needs to be some sort of time based mixing factor in there (I would guess that water locked up in glaciers is not being used as urine for long stretches of time, and, I think, there are parts of the oceans that stay pretty isolated for long periods of time). So the number could easily be too high by several orders of magnitude (if water regularly gets locked up for hundreds or thousands of years).

I imagine it is quite hard to take a drink and not have any urine molecules in it, but the estimation makes for a fun game.

Lay off the urine jokes.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tired of it. Everyone who drinks from a modern city water supply drinks recycled urine because water treatment plants reclaim water from human waste so they dont have to pump so much from the ground. They do it very efficiently too. No one even notices it really.

Re:Lay off the urine jokes.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some cities that recycle their sewage water, but so far, very far from "everyone" who drinks from a modern city water supply drinks recycled piss.

Plus, it's still gross.

Re:Lay off the urine jokes.

[QuantumRiff]

Most dump it underground, where it is eventually filtered right back into the wells and rivers you drink from. Many still dump the treated sewage into rivers or other large bodies of water, where it eventually evaporates and falls as rain, or enters an underground aquifer.

Besides, just think of all the water content you get from your food. That lettuce was surrounded by animal poop and/or nasty chemicals for fertilizer, and then irrigated with water, soaking right through the poop into the lettuce.

Re:Lay off the urine jokes.

[maugle]

Unless you live in PG county, Maryland, where there is a "boiled water advisory" because all the tap water SUDDENLY TASTES LIKE SEWAGE.

Re:Lay off the urine jokes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Still not the same. Look, city sewage has not only pee with human viruses but also pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. I don't know where this whole "recycled pee is the same as well water" spin is coming from, but it doesn't pass the smell test.

Obligatory

[0xdeadbeef]

Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine, I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.

Wow, I guess Starbucks really is everywhere.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I guess Starbucks really is everywhere.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20081120

Coiled tube

[flyingfsck]

A coiled up plastic tube will achieve the same thing, but a sealed plastic sippy bag is probably still best.

Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were to drink from a cup in space, I'd need a really long straw.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[ctetc007]

You do realize that you can only suck liquid up about 10 meters from the ground, right? Even if you had a vacuum pump, atmospheric pressure can only push liquid up the straw so far.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[MartinSchou]

Technically, the cup is in space. The long straw just means he isn't in space.

That being said, it still won't work. Not because he can't suck water more than 10 meters upwards (the cup will be above him in a gravitational reference), but because he cannot create a big enough pressure differential to get gravity on his side.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[shermo]

So it's a good thing he's sucking it down not up.

At least, that's how I read it. Damn ambiguous English.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[camperdave]

You do realize that you can only suck liquid up about 10 meters from the ground, right? Even if you had a vacuum pump, atmospheric pressure can only push liquid up the straw so far.

That's true as long as the liquid is being held by gravity. In orbit that is not the case, and the only limiting criterion would be friction of the liquid agains the side of the straw (which is essentially zero).

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[Anonymous Coward]

If the cup is in space, you are attempting to suck the liquid down, not up. There are still potential problems, but if the system was pressurized and there was air being added behind the liquid you are sucking, gravity will help you instead of making it impossible.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[gregbot9000]

So what your saying is that if you have a Spacestation, and I have a spacestation, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the void, and starts to drink your piss coffee... I... drink... your... piss coffee!

As long as the straw is less than 10 meters long.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing Outer Space is up and not down.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[ctetc007]

Yeah, that could work. Though I believe pressure inside the ISS cabin is even less than 1 atm, so it'll probably have to be somewhere around 5 meters or so to work.

Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space

[Anonymous Coward]

It was all a plot to reveal your thermally shielded vacuum superstraw technology.

pisswater coffee

[jollyreaper]

I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.

Char it and you'd never be able to tell it from Starbucks. Chill and carbonate it and it'll pass for Budweiser.

Re:pisswater coffee

[StikyPad]

If Budweiser tasted like carbonated urine, it would be a step up.

Re:pisswater coffee

[SoupGuru]

What is the deal with Starbucks and their imitators burning their beans? Is it because it's expected people are going to be adding milk and sugar, etc to it? I like a nice black cup of coffee and as such, I find Starbucks pretty undrinkable.

Re:pisswater coffee

[Abstrackt]

If Budweiser tasted like carbonated urine, it would be a step up.

Without some brave soul to establish a frame of reference, who's to say it doesn't taste like carbonated urine?

Re:pisswater coffee

[snspdaarf]

(bleep)"That's one small wee for Man, one giant leap for Budweiser."(bleep)

Re:pisswater coffee

[Anonymous Coward]

Chill and carbonate it and it'll pass for Budweiser.

I seriously doubt that. Budweiser only uses the very freshest recycled urine of Clydesdale colts for their beer. It might pass for Coors beer, though.

Re:pisswater coffee

[Grendel70]

Where are my mod points when I need them?

Re:pisswater coffee

[techno-vampire]

What is the deal with Starbucks and their imitators burning their beans?

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one here that finds Charbux coffee to be over-roasted, burnt and bitter. However, all is not lost if that's the only "coffee" you can find. Add just a pinch of salt and the bitterness goes away. Still, if they made it properly you wouldn't have to do that, would you? It's just another example of how good advertising can sell crap.

Re:pisswater coffee

[dkf]

What is the deal with Starbucks and their imitators burning their beans?

It's also important what type of drink you're making from it. You need a different type of roast to make a good filter coffee from a good espresso (e.g. Italian roasts tend to be great for espresso, but don't drink filter coffee in Rome as they really don't understand it; the Nordic countries do far better at filter coffee). You may need a different roast if you're adulterating the coffee with milk or sugar or even just hot water.

The other thing is whether the coffee is burnt during or after final making. If it's made too hot, it burns and tastes nasty, just as if it is kept too hot it's horrible too.

IME at one *specific* Starbucks, their filter coffee is great neat black at 07:20 in the morning, but nowhere near as good 30 minutes later. I make no claims for this result being extensible to any other part of the chain, and nor am I telling you which store; I don't want people getting in my way at all before I get my coffee...

Re:pisswater coffee

[gstoddart]

Char it and you'd never be able to tell it from Starbucks. Chill and carbonate it and it'll pass for Budweiser.

There's not nearly enough hops in Budweiser to be as bitter as Starbucks coffee. Not by a long-shot.

Cheers

Re:pisswater coffee

[Anonymous Coward]

Big step too

Recycled water?

[girlintraining]

ALL water is recycled. Thirty thousand years ago a mammoth was pissing out the water that's sitting in your coffee urn this morning. People need to get over this, just like they need to get over irradiated food. It's at least as safe to drink as bottled water; And likely moreso since some bottled water undergoes no processing prior to being packaged. Did you know that the LA municipal water supply recycles its sewage into tap water? It's the nation's largest sewage processing station, and as a byproduct it produces several million tonnes of valuable fertilizer that's highly valued for use on the wineries in California. This isn't unique to California -- many coastal cities use similar measures because the rivers are too polluted and they're too close to sea level to find water reserves underground.

Re:Recycled water?

[StikyPad]

Blasphemy! God constantly provides us with new water through his tears, AKA the rain, which adds mass to the planet daily. I suppose next you're going to try to tell us that clouds form through evaporation of the seas, or some such nonsense, despite the fact that clouds are EVERYWHERE, and the oceans would be dry by now if they were constantly evaporating.

Re:Recycled water?

[girlintraining]

Well, if he's crying it's probably because of something you did.

Re:Recycled water?

[StikyPad]

If so, they're tears of JOY!!!11

Re:Recycled water?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are issues with irradiated and genetically modified foods. There's a mountain of evidence that the former are less nutritious, and in every comparison I've ever tried the former did not taste nearly as good as organic.

You can talk all you want about increasing crop yields, but it's not like we're anywhere near a food shortage in this country. The government still pays some farmers a boatload not to grow anything every year.

Re:Recycled water?

[bugs2squash]

I had read somewhere (must be true then...) that by the time Londoners got to drink water, it had passed through an average of 7 other people upstream of London.

It was said to account for the good flavor and "softness" of London tap water, which does well in taste tests, and, in a separate article, for the sexual mutation of the fish in the river (from birth control pills apparently).

Austin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't drink that! It's not coffee!

You're already drinking urine every day anyway

[periscope]

Rob, dude, you really should think about some of these stories a little more before posting them. We're all drinking urine (and other much more horrible things) each and every day. It's what those costly water treatment plants on Earth are responsible for filtering, and it's what those expensive systems for the ISS are designed for. What's the difference? Either way the if the coffee tastes good, and it's clean water that's used, I'm happy drinking it :)

Young Doctors In Space

[snspdaarf]

"Taste like plain old piss to me." - Dr. Oliver Wendel Ludwig

rocket turbopump to administer astronaut caffiene

[w0mprat]

FTFA:
"The theory behind the novel coffee cup is the same one used by rockets to draw fuel into their engines while flying through weightless conditions in space, Pettit said."

Bit of a mistake there, or an out of context missquote: a space vehicle under acceleration doesn't really experience 'weightlessness' therefore there isn't really any problems with scavenging tanks. Surface tension would help to get engines and turbopumps started, logically.

But it doesn't taste like urine.

[RealProgrammer]

But I wonder who did the A/B comparison.

Maybe they just taste-tested the coffee against a cup from Starbucks.

Re:But it doesn't taste like urine.

[maxume]

I thought Starbucks charcoal filtered their coffee.

(for those of you who haven't caught up yet, not the water, the coffee)

Re:But it doesn't taste like urine.

[RealProgrammer]

No, they don't filter it. They just swish the charcoal around in the bottom of the pot for a while and BAM: "coffee".

The best part of walking up...

[Drakkenmensch]

"We've secretly replaced Buzz's cup of coffee with a batch of fresh urine recyc, let's see if he notices the difference..."

Re:The best part of walking up...

[NeuroManson]

Or Sgt. Folgers' crystals?

The Trek nerd in me wants to make jokes about Captain Kirk's Dilithium Crystals, but I'm exercising extreme restraint in this case. You're welcome.

Recycled urine for tea

[Unicorn Setu]

Why do you think you're not drinking recycled urine...and much worse?

Urine is safe to drink UNFILTERED, philistines!

[Anonymous Coward]

Waah waah waah! Recycled peepee! EWWWWWWWW!

OK kids, I know you get all worked up when you haven't had your nappy-time. Maybe this will help: you can drink piss straight out of the toilet bowl with a straw, and it's safe. In fact it would be even safer to whizz right into a cup, because PEE IS CLEANER THAN "CLEAN" TOILET WATER! So please, shut the FUCK up about it being dirty, children.

Re:Urine is safe to drink UNFILTERED, philistines!

[MaxwellEdison]

You see Frank? This is why no one comes to your parties anymore. You're weird.

Re:Urine is safe to drink UNFILTERED, philistines!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, it's sterile for about 10 seconds, then it becomes a bacteria farm

Re:Urine is safe to drink UNFILTERED, philistines!

[BattleApple]

you do realize you're the only person that has said anything about it being dirty?

Re:Urine is safe to drink UNFILTERED, philistines!

[justinlee37]

Dude, the person who wrote the ARTICLE SUMMARY said it was dirty.

A real mug design

[MaxwellEdison]

The more I think about it, the more I believe it probably wouldn't be that tough to convert a standard travel mug design to be zero-G ready. Fit a thumb lever on the top of the handle (think beer stein) to operate a small hatch over the drinking hole, and a squeeze operated handle (think caulk gun) lever which ratchets a plunger up from the bottom of the mug, similar to upright toothpaste dispensers. Why am I pondering this...I need to get back to work.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this...

[argent]

... in some SF novel or another. The design wasn't exactly the same, but the drinking vessel described used the same basic idea of surface tension wicking water out of the container. As the article noted, this is based on a common fuel-tank design. The story had an enclosed container because, well, even in free fall you've got to deal with the occasion fumble-fingered astronaut imparting acceleration to the container along an inappropriate vector. :)

Re:I'm pretty sure I've seen this...

[Neeperando]

The book was called First Contract by Greg Costikyan and was quite hilarious.

This little gizmo saved Earth's economy and prevented us from becoming a 3rd-galaxy world.

Yet another example of sci-fi authors being ahead of actual scientists, which is always amusing.

Re:I'm pretty sure I've seen this...

[argent]

I'm pretty sure I haven't read "First Contract" though the precis reminds me of a couple of other stories I ought to go back and re-read. SO that makes at least *two* novels or short stories this idea's shown up in. ^^

Re:I'm pretty sure I've seen this...

[hitmark]

maybe you read something from this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Keys_Moran

in there they drink coffee and other liquids from bulbs, kinda like a cross between a bottle and a pipette (thats the impression the books left me with at least).

PIGS . .

[Xerxes333]

drinking coffee IN SPACE!

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[Amazing Quantum Man]

No. More like drinking out of a Klein Bottle.

Mixed results

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27878326/

Mixed results can't be a good thing...

In Ukraine

[Gustavo the Aardvark]

In Ukraine you drink recycled uranium coffee cups.

I love the tags

[LordKaT]

Idle pepitotest coffee is science space story.

Can anyone tell me...

[Anonymous Coward]

why they don't just use a sippy cup?

Why was the first thing that came to mind...

[NeuroManson]

Two Astronauts, One Cup?

(I tried tagging it with that using Firefox, it still didn't show up)

Recycler disgusting ?

[Der PC]

You think the recycler is disgusting ?

Think about it a few seconds - your body recycles water from poop.

Admittedly, you don't drink the water, you inject it directly into your bloodstream.

Grossed out yet ?

Is that really easier?

[cyn1c77]

That doesn't look anymore convenient than using a bag with a straw. Maybe even less convenient since you still have to suck from the sharp edge of the bag. And do you still need to fill it from a bag with a straw like he does in the video?

Interesting though.

In Soviet Russia...

[LunarEffect]

Its like that anecdote, that the US spent millions on inventing a ball-tip pen that would work in space while the Russians just used a pencil ^^

2 space-girls, 1 cup

[nicodoggie]

and a new, very disgusting, futuristic meme

Re:rocket turbopump to administer astronaut caffie

[RockClimbingFool]

I am pretty sure what they are referring to are satellites already at their desired orbit.

Once satellites reach their orbit, they don't just sit there. After some time the orbit can start to shift around, so satellites use very small station keeping thrusters.

Most of the time these thrusters are bi-props (MMH and NTO) that use the same tanks that were employed to feed the much larger main engine used to circularize the orbit.

But once the satellite is at orbit, you have a relatively small amount of fuel / ox left in a large, mostly empty tank. So you need some stuff in the tank to hold the enough fuel for a quick firing of a station keeping thruster.

This thruster firing occurs in a "weightless" environment. If there wasn't some apparatus to collect and hold fuel / ox, you could never fire a thruster, which in turn sloshes some fuel / ox around, which is captured by the apparatus, which can be used for the next firing... until there is just no more fuel / ox left and the satellite is "dead".

I believe it is the above set of circumstances he is referring to.

recycled Urine

[Plasmagrid]

Sir, would you like that urine decaf or regular

Recycled BS

[fm6]

People need to get over this, just like they need to get over irradiated food.

What a stupid comparison. Purifying water is just a matter of removing the stuff that you don't want in it. Irradiating food means bombarding it with radiation that undoubtedly causes physical changes. Whether these changes are dangerous is a matter of controversy, and I won't pretend to know enough to have an opinion.

What I do know is that I'm tired of people dismissing whole ranges of opinions because they're too lazy to distinguish serious arguments form the half-baked notions of a few idiots. By that logic, nobody should ever vote Republican ever again because all Republicans are too stupid to distinguish between somebody who's a Islamofascist Terrorist and somebody whose middle name happens to be Hussein.

But of course Republicans aren't like that. They have smart people with legitimate concerns and they have a cadre of total idiots, just like every political or advocacy group. Dismissing the whole group because you can point out the stupidity of a few individuals in that group is itself extremely stupid.

not so sure about this

[TheAxeMaster]

The theory behind the novel coffee cup is the same one used by rockets to draw fuel into their engines while flying through weightless conditions in space, Pettit said

Umm...don't they use pumps? Big, fast ones that can drain swimming pools quickly and such? I don't think rockets are designed to run on capillary action.

Re:not so sure about this

[compro01]

How do you get the fuel into the pumps? Remember, the fuel is floating around in microgravity

U. T. I.

[CyberLord Seven]

Urinary Tract Infection!

kopi space luwak

[delorean]

Next mission-- kopi luwak (cat poop) coffee made with filtered human urine water! talk about the cupping characteristics of that brew!

Has to be said...

[ak3ldama]

Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine, I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.

As if coffee is that much better. *ducks

Broken page

[Joebert]

Surface tension inside the cup keeps the Iframes/JavaScript Tags: from floating out and running amuck.

What the hell ?

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[camperdave]

I'm having a bit of trouble picturing this...

The horizontal cross section of the mug is a teardrop shape, rather than a circle (like a standard mug). The coffee stays in one clump in the cup due to surface tension. However, at the pointy end of the teardrop, the coffee is drawn towards the mouth of the cup through capillary action. An astronaut may sip the coffee from the pointy end of the mug while the bulk of the coffee remains in the mug. Capillary action will continuously replace the coffee that is being sipped away.

"space station inhabitants drink recycled urine"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet it's far purer and safer to drink than the water that comes out of your tap.

Summary writer = idiot

[justinlee37]

Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine, I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.

What the hell do you think they do with the urine you shoot into your toilet, you bloody cod?

But Do They Drink....

[mollace]

Kopi Luwak coffee brewed with recycled urine? That would be great, I bet.

On Soviet Soyuz missions...

[johndmartiniii]

the coffee drank you out of a straw.

Recycled Urine?

[Greyfox]

You're soaking in it. We don't get NEW water, dude. Earth is just a huge recycling apparatus. You can't go very far without encountering a few molecules that you've peed or crapped out at some point in the past. Hell if you've ever gone swimming in a public pool or the ocean, that's a lot nastier than anything you're going to find on a NASA space station.

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I'm having a bit of trouble picturing this...

In case you can't view the video or the pictures:

  1) Take a piece of paper.

  2) Fold it in half but don't squash and crease it. The joined edges are flat together and the rest of the paper tries to form a gentle curve. The midline where the crease WOULD have been is trying to be a cylinder, but the curvature has to reduce, then reverse, to end up with the edges being flat together. The result is a pipe with a cross-section shaped like a tear drop.

  3) Now take your teardrop-pipe and fold one end closed. Squeeze the rest so the remaining opening in the other end stays open and teardrop shaped. This is your cup.

  4) When you fill it with liquid in zero-G the liquid attaches to the cup by surface tension. It is attracted most to the folded edge, because there's so much more surface in close proximity. Next most attractive area is the closed bottom, so the bulk of the liquid stays down there.

  5) Because the join of the edges is so attractive, the blob of liquid reaches an "arm" up the inside of the join, all the way up to the cup's opening. That's where you suck on it. It's like a virtual straw, which doesn't need to completely enclose the liquid.

Make sense now?

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[Abreu]

Thanks a lot, +1 informative

It's called the Water Cycle

[NReitzel]

Don't look now, but you already drink recycled urine. Stuff goes down the drain, to water treatment, to lake or ocean or golf course. At this point, it evaporates. The water vapor aggregates as clouds, the clouds produce rain. The rain ends up in reservoirs or aquifers, whence comes drinking water.

The cycle is just a little smaller in the space station.

Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu

[FreakinSyco]

You rule. Seriously explained a lot.