Urine recycling equipment passes tests, no one willing to take the first sip

Thank heavens -- the $154 million water recycling system, which is designed to convert sweat, moisture and urine into an ingestible fluid, um, works. According to NASA, the Urine Processor Assembly (UPA) managed to get through three rigorous testing sessions, and apparently that was good enough for officials to leave it in orbit. So yeah, theoretically we now have a way to keep long-term space cadets hydrated for months, but is anyone really going to volunteer to pinch their nostrils and toss back the first shot? Our sources point to "no."

[Ignatius @ Nov 26th 2008 7:26AM]

If you're going to have the balls to take the ultimate risk of spaceflight, you can do something mundane like drinking converted urine.

[grabbydad @ Nov 26th 2008 10:07AM]

Agreed.
Also, Bear Grylls just pisses into his canteen sans filtration, then drinks it like it's regular old H2O. That'll put some hair on your chest.

[jay.viz @ Nov 26th 2008 10:28AM]

Killing one's self is easy. Torturing one's self is not.

[Neal @ Nov 26th 2008 10:34AM]

Yea, because all the water YOU drink everyday was locked in a glacier and never consumed by anyone or anything else on the face of the earth in all the millions of years of creation. Right.

You are all fooling yourselves if you think you are not drinking molecules which have orbited the earth in a cloud, gone through wave after wave in the ocean, been ingested by fish, rats, cats or the rotting corpse of a plague victim from centuries ago.

[Flashpoint @ Nov 26th 2008 11:39AM]

Regardless the fact that nature has already recycled basically 99% of all H2O molecules...

...people who drink bottled water have no idea what's in it.

Phosphorous, Nitrates, Copper, sulfur...I did the chemical analysis last week in fact of Dasani and wasn't very happy with some results.

Piss is actually STERILE when it leaves the body. The only problem is, humans can't drink salt water cause it causes cells to burst.

[OneLove @ Nov 26th 2008 12:02PM]

so do you stick your pecker in one end and then run to the other side with a cup? (Does it make pee pee ice?)

[michigander @ Nov 26th 2008 12:53PM]

Although it would be gross to drink from, it is pretty much the same as any water recycling plant in any city, just on a smaller scale.

[Harkonian @ Nov 26th 2008 2:21PM]

This unit is somewhat larger than the one Muad'dib carries around.

[onepinksheep @ Nov 26th 2008 8:34PM]

@Harkonian: A Dune reference! Nice. +1

[Gerard @ Nov 26th 2008 7:26AM]

Where do I sign up? I think it would be awesome to drink something that came out of THAT!

We already drink our own piss, just filtered by nature.

[skittles @ Nov 26th 2008 7:45AM]

Dude that is 'the nasty'......

{$154 bloody million for this........i wonder if this thing can make coffee too though ?!?}

[shamowfski @ Nov 26th 2008 8:49AM]

@skittles: I think if I had to drink filtered urine I would rather do it out of a machine designed by NASA that cost 154 million than something designed by brando that costs $8.

[TrentD @ Nov 26th 2008 9:13AM]

It reminds me of Doc Brown's ice machine in Back to the Future III!

[Precurse @ Nov 26th 2008 9:39AM]

@skitties

Espisso?

[StalematE @ Nov 26th 2008 12:33PM]

didn't that survivorman guy drink his own pee with just a dixie cup and some suran wrap?

[Brandon L @ Nov 26th 2008 7:26AM]

I can see astronauts playing drinking games with this new product.

[Funke, Tobias Dr. @ Nov 26th 2008 11:06AM]

What do you mean hose 33F was switched to connector 8J? Gross!

[iEye @ Nov 26th 2008 12:09PM]

Expensive and over sized for a BRITA filter.. oh wait this is NASA

[Zelatio @ Nov 26th 2008 12:40PM]

Expensive? Oh yes. Anyone else hear the $100,000 bag that the astronaut dropped on the latest space walk? Apparently all it had in it was a few wrenches and 2 trash bags. Must be some nice ass trash bags.

[Nayef Alsmairi @ Nov 26th 2008 7:27AM]

First !

[Chromana @ Nov 26th 2008 7:33AM]

First to get the Loser Award.

[Samboini @ Nov 26th 2008 1:31PM]

He means first to taste the piss!

[iEye @ Nov 26th 2008 7:28AM]

This is why they are so desperate to find ice on mars...

[JJ @ Nov 26th 2008 7:31AM]

Pop that baby into a wearable suit and I can run around the desert like a freman! woot!

[Talb @ Nov 26th 2008 8:07AM]

Don't forget to wear your boots in the slip fashion when you go out into the deep desert. To maximise pumping. and drink all your water, it stays in the suit and boosts your energy.

[Shawndh @ Nov 26th 2008 3:25PM]

You'll know the battery is dying when you taste salt. =) Yummy!

[Reader @ Nov 26th 2008 7:32AM]

Why did this cost 415million and why is it so fucking big? I would think it wouldn't even have to be as complicated as one here on earth since I don't believe astronauts can take any hormonal medication or anything like that. It seems like a normal distillery would work, no? The only thing I can think of that might be dangerous is something like a prion, but I don't think that'd be in your urine, and even if it was they could just superheat the steam to make sure it kills it.

Maybe I'm missing something?

[jimmy @ Nov 26th 2008 7:42AM]

you're obviously missing, oh i don't know, any experience in this subject... you think they didn't try boiling piss thousands of years ago?

you don't think it should be this complicated because you never tried to do it maybe?!

[NicP @ Nov 26th 2008 7:53AM]

I hate to be the one to break the obvious but without gravity steam does not rise.

[Reader @ Nov 26th 2008 8:11AM]

No, steam does not rise, but it will move to a lower pressure area. Coincidentally this would be the condenser like in any normal distiller. I figured this part was obvious enough to not have to mention, guess not...

And yes, it is true I have no experience in this field, but neither of you have made one good point. People didn't go through the trouble to boil piss, just 200 years ago people were drinking their own shit practically. Cholera wasn't discovered until the 1800s. Also why would people boil piss when there are easier methods for getting water?

One of the first results for 'distilling urine' is this link: http://www.wisegeek.com/how-does-distilling-urine-produce-potable-water.htm

But no, I'm not going to go distill my piss and try it just to prove a point.

[tcc3 @ Nov 26th 2008 8:12AM]

In addition to the above, boiling also wont kill prions. Not that they're alive in the first place, but the point stands.

[Reader @ Nov 26th 2008 8:16AM]

Actually found a forum post on xkcd via google. The reason it is unsafe is because of urea, which makes sense. "The urea that is in urine is a volatile organic compound. Additionally, at elevated heat and concentrations in an aqueous solution, urea decomposes into ammonia and CO2." http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30507

Ammonia is bad, but at least it'd be slightly carbonated.

It was just an old thought I had since I was a kid and never looked it up. Remember imagining long space flights and how to reuse stuff. I didn't think of it as distilling though, imagined it as boiling a pot of water with a trash back over it. Anywho, thanks for your awesome points. Figured I'd answer my own question in case anyone else cared.

[Reader @ Nov 26th 2008 8:17AM]

tcc3, yeah mentioned that in my OP. I think they break down at 1,000 c or something, so that's where the super heating comment came from.

[Ryback @ Nov 26th 2008 9:07AM]

You could fit a pretty large water tank in it's place. Looks like it is around 2mx2mx1m (assuming it is standard rack size on the equipment). That would give you 4000 liters of water. But then you would have to lug the water from earth or mars. The 154 million is probably a pretty cheap alternative to transporting 4 tons of water into space several times a year.

[NicP @ Nov 26th 2008 9:55AM]

"No, steam does not rise, but it will move to a lower pressure area. Coincidentally this would be the condenser like in any normal distiller. I figured this part was obvious enough to not have to mention, guess not... "

But in zero gravity wouldn't the urine also move to the lower pressure area contaminating the output. It was my understanding that a centrifuge was used in order to separate steam from liquid.

As we have already established a simple distillery does not work in this situation for the many reasons you, and others, have listed. Hence the complicated apparatus :)

[Allister @ Nov 26th 2008 7:34AM]

Couldn't taste any worse than Mountain Dew...

[Mike Johnson @ Nov 26th 2008 7:47AM]

Or Bud...

[Cal @ Nov 26th 2008 7:50AM]

What do you think bud is?..

[r3loaded @ Nov 26th 2008 8:34AM]

Or Red Bull.

[fistpittingnork @ Nov 26th 2008 8:36AM]

Now what do you have to wash that awful taste out of my mouth?

- Mountain Dew or crab juice

Bleh! Eew! Sheesh! I'll take a crab juice.

[Stem $ell @ Nov 26th 2008 12:10PM]

Factoid: A full 17% of the ISS's solar power is devoted to removing that 'asparagus' smell from recycled urine (damn Ukrainians!)

[Amun @ Nov 26th 2008 2:20PM]

HILARIOUS JOKE FROM A FILM AND/OR TELEVISION PROGRAM WE ARE BOTH FAMILIAR WITH.

[MarbleMind @ Nov 26th 2008 7:35AM]

"Long ago, at the beginning of the 21th century, urine recycling units were expensive, large and heavy machines with well over hundred valves, hoses, knobs and thousands of other small parts. They were slow, used up a large amount of energy and required several trained specialists to be operated properly. Nowadays..."





Sorry, couldn't resist.

[skittles @ Nov 26th 2008 8:00AM]

Props bro
Your grandson's gonna make a fine salesman, just teach him all you know

c",)

[Rizwan Alvi @ Nov 26th 2008 7:36AM]

exactly which one of those receptacles is for my contribution?

[strider_mt2k @ Nov 26th 2008 7:38AM]

Your sources don't go to space then.

[a_roast_chicken @ Nov 26th 2008 7:42AM]

Give me $5 I'll do it

[Arke @ Nov 26th 2008 7:46AM]

Do you think anyone will pay you to piss on a multi million dollar gadget?

[absinthe party @ Nov 26th 2008 7:45AM]

Dry land is not a myth! I've seen it!

[VampireHunter Z @ Nov 26th 2008 7:55AM]

I was wondering how comes they didn't use a picture from Water World for this post.