NASA's New Bag Turns Urine Into Sports Drink 182
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.
Re:work with sea water? (Score:2, Informative)
They already do this, a company named SeaPack sells one.
Forgive me the Amazon link, but the other sites talking about it were blogs, and sites I can't get to from work.
http://www.amazon.com/Hydration-Technology-Innovations-SeaPack-Filter/dp/B0013J2UPA
Tekfactory
Re:work with sea water? (Score:5, Informative)
They provide the same kind of devices for humanitarian purposes. There is at least one version for military use, and I was able to pick up a few of the early versions through a company contact.
Here's the direct link: http://www.htiwater.com/ [htiwater.com]
Re:So what ? (Score:4, Informative)
I have a well for my house, with a commercial reverse osmosis filtering system. So no, I don't realize that.
Aside from that, most of the cities around me get their drinking water directly from Lake Michigan. The 'sewage' that you mention gets treated and sold as 'soil' at the local home improvement store after being mixed with sand to prevent clumping. The fluid component also gets treated and sent off to agriculture where it is used as fertilizer. Any other reclaimed water is used mainly for irrigation or industrial uses, and not drinking water.
You only have a surface understanding of these processes, and it doesn't apply to very many actual cities, and millions of people. In actuality, there are probably only a few thousand people in the US who directly get drinking water from treated sewage like you describe.
Re:Just ask Bear Grylls (Score:5, Informative)
Drinking urine when no other source of fluid is available is better than simply dehydrating and is better than drinking sea water. However, once dehydration has set in, drinking urine only compounds the issue. The body is already trying to get rid of sodium to maintain the proper balance, and drinking the urine just adds it back into the body. This leads to even more thirst as the body craves water to balance things out again.
This is why Les Stroud built the urine still. The water was relatively clean and safer to drink, though you get diminishing returns if that's all you have. It may provide a holdover until you can find a better source of water.