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...

[gnick]

2astronauts1cup?

In zero-G no less. Ugh.

'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..'

[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..'

[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..'

[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..'

[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..'

[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

The Russians figured it out first.

[MaxwellEdison]

They just drink pencils.

Re:The Russians figured it out first.

[Bemopolis]

You just made lead shoot out of my nose.

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: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.

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.

[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.

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.

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

[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

[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.

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

[snspdaarf]

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

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

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: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?