tomhudson's Journal: Purified urine to be astronauts' drinking water

Reuters is reporting

"As NASA prepares to double the number of astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, nothing may do more for crew bonding than a machine being launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on Friday. It's a water-recycling device that will process the crew's urine for communal consumption.

They could improve morale by recycling it into booze. At least that way, the astronauts would have a legit gripe when they say "This beer tastes like piss!" and "Stop watering down the drinks!".

So?

[plover]

A lot of big-city water sources are slightly filtered river water. That's a fancy way of saying "fish piss".

At least on the ISS, they'll know the names of the fish.

Re:

[ces]

Not just fish piss, but the sewage outfall of every city and town upstream.

Odd

[Corporate Troll]

I frankly thought that this was already common practice in space stations.

Scotch, please.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I'll have a wee dram.

Wastewater

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Someday soon we will look back on our wasteful habits with amazement. We go through great expense to treat sewer products with millions of dollars of water treatment plants, and the purified water is completely safe and clean to drink. But instead we eject that pure clean water into a river or back into the ground. We then withdraw more dirty water from rivers or the ground only to clean and purify it at enormous expense.

This is the kind of stupidity that is the hallmark of our civilization.

Re:

[tomhudson]

Henry Ford said it best - his solution for water pollution - "You can dump anything you want in the river, provided you put your water intake directly downstream." In other words, if you're not willing to drink it, don't subject others to it, either.

World's most expensive...

[Farmer Tim]

...piss up.

I know the headline wouldn't be as catchy

[joshuac]

but "purified water" is probably a bit more accurate that "purified urine". Unless their new machine specifically processes their urine to make it extra urine-like.

Re:

[unlametheweak]

Urine has a lot more flavour to it.