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NASA's New Bag Turns Urine Into Sports Drink
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Atlantis shuttle is set to launch this Friday, and its crew will be testing an innovative device that can recycle human urine into a sugary sports drink. The bag uses forward osmosis technology and features a semi-permeable membrane capable of isolating water from virtually any liquid. Recycling urine in this way has a significant effect on a ship's payload, and considering that a single pound adds $10,000 of cost, that slight weight difference can translate to serious savings."
CT: I'm at Kennedy Space Center now, tweeting as @cmdrtaco. And I think I'll stay away from the sports drink.
I bet they could have gotten away with just a regular plastic bag.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
We needed something to wash the "Turd Burger" down with!
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Piss was already a sports drink.
I got here through a series of tubes
Or as the Germans would say - "but it already is a sports drink" .
Sounds like someone has the diabeeetus.
It IS in you...
NASA has given us one of the major components required for a functioning stillsuit. Thanks, NASA!
"You cannot pee into a Mr. Coffee and get Taster's Choice!"
Recycling urine does sound like an efficient and logical thing to do in a space craft, but I'd hate to be the one testing it.
Tang 2.0
It has what astronauts crave!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
For this trip. Too bad they won't be able to use it in the future.
Gatorade. Was it in you?
Just please tell me it is NOT yellow after being "processed"...
I'll drink to that.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
They could just pee in empty Budweiser bottles, no one would notice the difference once it is refrigerated
Assuming it can filter out a bacterial infection in piss so will it work to make sea water drinkable?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
With the realization that effluent from sewage plants has detectable amounts of antidepressants, estrogen (from birth control pills), and other modern drugs which may be impacting river life, I'd really like to know that this membrane stops those (as well as "virtually any liquid"). I'd hate to spend a couple of months in space and find that I now had breasts due to water-transported hormones from the women on the crew...and that they'd grown muscles and body hair due to mine.
All the necessary ingredients to make a piss poor joke and I've got nothin.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I don't get the "Eww" comments. You do realize that what you flush down the toilet goes to a gigantic pond where the solids settle out then the remaining liquids are pumped through filters and sent right back to your faucet, don't you?
This is just a handy portable (potable?) option to the system already in place in most North American cities.
I routinely turn sports drinks into urine.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
It will be funny how many jokes these guys will have to put up with when they get back to earth.
SeaPack makes a Forward Osmosis water filtration bag that was designed for Seawater desalination and it produced a sports drink like liquid and if you had more pouches of the activation powder you could keep reusing the bag.
http://www.amazon.com/Hydration-Technology-Innovations-SeaPack-Filter/dp/B0013J2UPA
Tekfactory
The secret ingredient is you.
I, for one, welcome our pee drinking overlords!
The taste has a little wang to it.
"Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk."
~Joaquin Setanti
And i got a good name for it. Call it... Gatorade. Yellow colored for extra effect.
Budweiser has been turning piss into beverages for decades.
Urophagia!
It's not just for perverts anymore!
New TANG!
Vescere bracis meis.
I guess it must be close to the end of the world 12/21/12. People are drinking their own urine. Oy.
Come on modders ... that was genuine, laugh-out-loud funny.
New and improved.
Vic Romano: And here's Bud White, he's creator of the all new make it yourself sports drink Urinade. For the athlete on the go who needs to get going.
Kenny Blankenship: I haven't tried Urinade. Have you, Vic?
Vic Romano: Actually Ken, I can't. Unfortunately my catheter filters out most of the nutrients.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The article says they are going to test it with an "experimental liquid" instead of urine. Talk about deceptive advertising!
Twice!
If there's G2, I think they should brand it as P2
Insert signature here...
There are no sports in space, only research and sleep/poop. Just recycle the urine with light weight activated carbon and drink away. You can do this with one small device also driven by solar energy. The idea is not new, and this is silly to call it a sugary sports drink. Sugar requires a LOT of water to process in the body. So this notion is self defeating as well, sad for NASA to come out once again looking stupid as shit.
I'm sorry, but this is just speeding up what happens in nature. You think the water coming out of your tap is "new"? All water on earth has been the subject of repeated biological processes since life first evolved. You eat and drink molecules that were urine, excrement or both numerous times, and you breath air that has already been breathed repeatedly. Water is water. Drink it. Also: Yuck!
Can you say "still-suits?"
...confuse the lemon-flavored version with unfiltered...
Twinkle twinkle little star...
Well, Bear Grylls has been doing it for years!
...Amazing Horse cartoon.
Twinkle twinkle little star....
Im surprised nobody's made a still-suit reference yet...
What flight?
Tinkle tinkle, little star...
Japan has already beaten them to the "punch".
At least this stuff's got electrolytes!
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Store it, heat it to a high temp and pump it out at a rediculouisly high pressure to use as a reactionary mass for manuevering.
Why drink it.
But will they be able to give it a name good enough to stand alongside drinks like Calpis and Pocari Sweat.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
I wander if this will take off like Tang did.
As they use a sugar solution and create a sports drink, I wonder how viable this is for a diabetic. Typically diabetics are told to avoid juices and other sugary drinks as that tends to spike their blood sugar level.
It turns shit into chocolate pudding!
Mmmmm!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
"It's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave."
Idiocracy FTW.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Can the residue be used to make gunpowder in space?
McDonalds does that with their meat all ready! no kidding. (its cow shit so its ok if you cook it extra! no kidding. look it up.)
Considering recent news (I can't remember if it was popsi or here) that alcohol reduces the effect of weightlessness. So now you have a choice, pee flavored energy drinks or wine to make you pee energy drinks.
taste tester: "which of these three samples taste the least like piss?"
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Space Jarate! A refreshing drink or a brutal weapon of orbital mass destruction? You decide! Coming soon to your local corner store and space station!
I wonder whether this will catch on the way Tang did?
At the Supermarket: "Mommy can I have Pee-Tang?". "After you go , honey."
For some reason, while considering this article, I keep thinking of street side lemonade stands.
Which is worse? Recycled pee, or lemonade made by a kid with no hygienic controls?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
You are a wuss.
Dump it in the reservoir in Portland!
-- QED
If it can be rigged to run on power generated by walking, this is the core technology of a Stillsuit (see Dune).
-- QED
Your morning piss is now your pick me up too.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Agreed. Mod Parent up!
Those who can, do. Those who can't, go into business for themselves.
If not the exact technology, the concept was first bandied about in the early days of Space Station Freedom design and development. Among other things, Space Station was supposed to lead to a Closed Environmental Life Support System that included reprocessing urine, atmospheric condensate and, well, yeah, fecal water into water of sufficient quality for drinking and even medical uses. A lot of work, by quality scientists and engineers went into this. In 1992, an experiment flew in SpaceLab on STS-47 that demonstrated taking Kennedy Space Center tap water, storing it in a closed container for 90 days, and running it through a process/apparatus called SWIS (Sterile Water for Injection System) to create water that was demonstrably "ultra-pure water for injection" per the US Pharmacopaea. Oh, and it worked, too. Making waste water into something drinkable is considerably simpler.
A poster commented on the potential for cross-transfer of large molecular weight compounds across the ultrafiltration membrane... Unlikely unless it's got holes, and they'd become obvious by the "filtration" rate.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
Urine for a treat!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You have two hosts with different skillsets. One is a hippie, primitive skills expert, desert dwelling, bare-foot walker. The other is an ex-military, hunter, swamp/forest dwelling, boot wearer.
They tell you up front that they stage the situation, but make it entertaining and educational to watch.
As a outdoorsman/kid all my life even I have picked up some interesting tips from the show. No non-professional adventurer can go to all the places these shows take you.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Waterworld here we come!
time to turn my poop
They're finally here... the still suits from Dune!
As Lyet-Kynes explained:
"It's basically a micro-sandwich — a high-efficiency filter and heat-exchange system. The skin-contact layer's porous. Perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body ... near-normal evaporation process. The next two layers . . . include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt's reclaimed. Motions of the body, especially breathing and some osmotic action provide the pumping force. Reclaimed water circulates to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck... Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads. In the open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to ensure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won't lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day..."
Starbucks better start worrying... my pee is way better!
I wonder why the kids no longer strive to be scientists like they used to. I dont think that the NASA brand sports drink cathader is going to help anybody want to go into science, other than that character Tom Baker payed in an episode of Black Adder.
All kidding aside, I hope they have it perfected before they travel to Uranus.
It's called a bladder, nimnull. Sweetened urine in a bag? It's called a diabetic's bladder, twizbot.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Yeah, no wonder NASA waited til the last mission. Almost makes me feel sorry for the crew. On the other hand, if this ever becomes a consumer product, wouldn't that change the summer vacation drive? Kid in the backseat: "I've got to go to the bathroom!" Scowling Dad in front: "Drink your piss like a man and quit whining."
I guess drinking your own piss is the only thing they have left to do.
TMI
After all, most sports drinks already have the taste.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Really? Someone was tweeting from Kennedy Space Center as @cmdrtaco in 2009? Your encyclopedic knowledge of past tweets is impressive.
If he doesn't want the cookie, can I have it?
...were pissed off.
Somehow this reminds me of the Stillsuits worn by the native Fremen on the planet Arrakis!
Someone in NASA must be a big fan of Herbert Frank!
Entering orbital spaceflight... better drink my own piss.
Now, the Gatorade will be dumped on the LOSING TEAM'S COACH, instead of the winning team's coach,. . .
Slurp Pee
Make sure the sugars have fermented and it's called "beer".
This old clip applies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-4BFfdGufo
Or as the Germans would say - "but it already is a sports drink" .
Undoing bad moderation. Sorry, I tried for +1 funny, you got Overrated. I blame /.'s crappy new design (which is less crappy then the old design, but still crappy).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Urine has long been a sports drink in San Francisco.
No, really.
Tang, I don't think I will be able to drink it now.
Take the Red Pill.
If I had $10,000 for each lb of American's over-weight we would be wealthy. Due to those extra pounds; America is putting a strain on Earth's gravitational pull which is why most American's think the world revolves around them.
Could not be further from the truth.
Some people I have spoken to say, because it is the last, too much emphasis, expectations and payloads have been put on this mission which could lead to a disaster. Let's hope not!
Good luck and as always, it is returning that is the hard part!
All cows eat grass!
Have been selling piss in a bottle for decades and NASA has only just caught on???
To wash down the shit sandwich the James Webb people have just had to eat.
Athy, athier, athiest.
This story is a load of piss.
Recycling urine does sound like an efficient and logical thing to do in a space craft, but I'd hate to be the one testing it.
Apparently you get used to it after a while :)
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!