"I gotta piss and I'm thirsty. Win, Win!"
You wonder what NASA does with all that money we give them? Well, just ask Wired. They found out that NASA is hard at work on creating new and better ways to get Astronauts to drink…Pee.
Until now, pee has been dumped overboard, but the new “Water Recovery System” will make sure it doesn’t go to waste, an ability that could be critical to future human space travel. “Some people may think it’s downright disgusting, but if it’s done correctly, you process water that’s purer than what you drink here on Earth,” said Endeavour mission specialist astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper in a preflight NASA interview. “More important, [it] allows us the capability of being more self sufficient and not requiring as many supplies to be sent up to the space station. Going on to the moon and to Mars, that’s really going to be critical.”
Is it weird that the idea of drinking my pee doesn’t really disgust me? I mean, isn’t it like chewing your fingernails? Or am I totally off base here?
