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.
Having tasted many sports drinks... (Score:5, Funny)
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I was going to say, doesn't Gatorade do this already?
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Re:Having tasted many sports drinks... (Score:5, Funny)
Urine idiot.
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(-1, Taking the piss)
Can we get a Nike endorsement? (Score:2)
Urine for a treat!
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Born Survivor? Tory prat.
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Vitamin Water FTW.
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"Yes, vitamin pills are worthless compared to just eating healthy food."
Well, that's actually not entirely true. Bioavailability of nutrients will naturally vary by the compound type. Take plants for example; they don't absorb ammoniate nitrogen sources as well as they absorb nitrate nitrogen sources. Other helper compunds might increase bioavailability of certain nutrients and vitamins.
In your case, it's primarily a concern of the bio-binding agent.
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I'm assuming the plug for Vitamin Water was a joke. If not, you're a freakin' retard. Vitamin Water is worse than useless. Think of 12 oz of tap water (less than $0.01) and a vitamin (~ $0.30), and the fact that you piss both of them down the drain. Yes, vitamin pills are worthless compared to just eating healthy food. Now imagine you buy this water + vitamin pill in a disposable plastic bottle, for FIVE TIMES what the water + vitamin pill cost. Oh, and add in the "crystallized fructose", which is goddamn high fructose corn syrup, the source of most obesity in the U.S.
There you go; you are a retard, and paying for the privilege.
Just wow..here we go again.. such maturity. Troll much?
While I think the bottled water craze is unfathomable, this is not that.
For those not familiar with it: I drink the zero calorie acai-berry vitamin water, not the regular stuff. Until I hear of the FDA cracking down on Glauceau for false advertising, I will take them at their word for it. VW also has electrolytes as does Gatorade, and you can't get that from just vitamins and plain water.
I drink it while I work out, and it hits the spot; it tas
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No. Gatorade is bottled sweat. It'd be better if it included some piss, though. Must have been an oversight in R&D.
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I've always rather LIKED Gatorade...the original lemon-lime flavor.
I really like it on mornings when I'm hungover....
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I really like it on mornings when I'm hungover....
Try Irn Bru, there's nothing better in my opinion.
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"In United States, the spent millions of dollars to design ball-point pen usable in zero gravity. In Soviet Union, we simply used pencil."
Just in time! (Score:5, Funny)
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Yep, but it's nothing new... (Score:2)
Just ask Bear Grylls (Score:5, Funny)
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Never could stand that guy. What I saw of his show looked like surviva-sensationalism. I always preferred Survivor Man who was by no means without flaw. Rather than drinking his own piss to get a reaction out of the viewers, he build a urine still and drank purified water. I-am-not-a-mountain-man, but I always thought that urine was filled with toxins and drinking your own would be as detrimental as drinking sea water.
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no, survivor man has to survive, grylls is going with a full camera crew from scene to scene and sleeps in hotels
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.
"Dual Survival" is the best of this show type. (Score:2)
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.
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Patches O'Houlihan agrees.
As the Brits would say, "they're taking the piss!" (Score:1, Redundant)
Or as the Germans would say - "but it already is a sports drink" .
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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).
In related news:Nasa nixes asparagas from menu.... (Score:5, Funny)
Mod parent up (Score:2)
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Agreed. Mod Parent up!
Stillsuit (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA has given us one of the major components required for a functioning stillsuit. Thanks, NASA!
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Now all we need is a way to get to another planet so we have a need for it.
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No they didn't, all they did was copy this.
http://www.htiwater.com/xpack.html?&Vl=1&Tp=2 [htiwater.com]
My favorite quote applies (Score:4, Funny)
"You cannot pee into a Mr. Coffee and get Taster's Choice!"
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"We need to get fresh water; the urine's been recycled so much it's stronger than the lager!"
That is one beta test I am glad I am not part of (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:That is one beta test I am glad I am not part o (Score:4, Funny)
taste tester: "which of these three samples taste the least like piss?"
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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 [youtube.com] :)
Name it... (Score:4, Funny)
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Tang 2.0
With the *NEW* *IMPROVED* flavour.
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Tang 2.0
Now with more wang?
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Clear as Rocky Mountain spring water (Score:2)
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Add one redneck and you have a perpetual (quasi) beer machine.
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Actually, that would be interesting. (I didn't read TFA to see if it answered this question.)
Start with 10 gallons of water or whatever, and use this machine and keep recycling the water, see how long it will last. (Obviously some could come out as sweat, but don't do the experiment in a really hot location. Some is used as tears, etc..)
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There's another place considerable water comes out...
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Which is why I said "etc.."
I mostly wondered what percentage of one's intake of water came out as urine, as long as they weren't sweating tons of it out.
It's got electrolytes... (Score:5, Funny)
It has what astronauts crave!
"serious savings" (Score:1)
New Advertising Slogan (Score:5, Funny)
Gatorade. Was it in you?
Yes... (Score:4, Funny)
Twice!
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That's why they number them now.
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Bear Grylls says.. (Score:2)
I'll drink to that.
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work with sea water? (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming it can filter out a bacterial infection in piss so will it work to make sea water drinkable?
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It might work, but how are they going to fit the entire ocean in the shuttle before it's next launch?
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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]
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If you drink your own piss, then there is no problem with bacterial infection. Any infection you pick up from your own piss is an infection that you already have (assuming that you drink it quickly).
This is actually an important point in waste disposal. For some reason people assume that our waste products leave our bodies swarming with diseases. The only diseases or bacteria that emerges are those that you already have. This should be obvious, but our cultural upbringing of "sewage = disease" kind of g
What about drugs/hormones? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:What about drugs/hormones? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Given the antidepressants are you sure you would hate it? :-)
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Seeing as you're posting on Slashdot (along with me I might add), that might be the only chance you have to get your hands on some boobies.
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If you spent a couple of months alone in space, growing breasts might not be all bad.
piss, payload, and pound (Score:2)
All the necessary ingredients to make a piss poor joke and I've got nothin.
So what ? (Score:3)
This is just a handy portable (potable?) option to the system already in place in most North American cities.
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Let's go for the whole hog! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_of_the_Dune_universe#Stillsuit [wikipedia.org]
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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?
And to some of the bottled water bottling plants. :-)
... look into why hikers and backpackers near such stream generally carry water filters or sterilization tools.
And for those relieved that their bottled water comes from mountain streams
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For most people, the process has so many hidden intermediate steps that they can mentally separate the urine from the "fresh" drinking water. In this case, we're being shown a small number of non-hidden intermediate steps which increases the "eww factor." (That "eww factor" being a handy survival skill because, before the invention of modern filtering systems, you didn't want to go about drinking your urine or anything that you had recently urinated into.
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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.
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" You do realize that what you flush down the toilet goes to a large tank where the solids settle out then the remaining liquids are drained into the ground water and sent right back to your faucet, don't you?
there is that better?
Revolving door (Score:2)
I routinely turn sports drinks into urine.
Suddenly I dont want to be an astronaut (Score:1)
It will be funny how many jokes these guys will have to put up with when they get back to earth.
Sounds awesome (Score:2)
And i got a good name for it. Call it... Gatorade. Yellow colored for extra effect.
I'm making Urinade right now (Score:2)
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. [mybrain.ej.am]
But it won't actually be tested with urine! (Score:2)
The article says they are going to test it with an "experimental liquid" instead of urine. Talk about deceptive advertising!
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The article says they are going to test it with an "experimental liquid" instead of urine. Talk about deceptive advertising!
Well, that's the story they're feeding to the astronauts anyway.
So many uses... (Score:2)
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Name (Score:2)
Come see my magic box! (Score:2)
It turns shit into chocolate pudding!
Mmmmm!
Dump it in the reservoir in Portland! (Score:2)
Stillsuit (Score:2)
7 Hour energy in the morning. (Score:2)
The idea's beeen around for awhile (Score:2)
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 de
urine in a bag? (Score:2)
this is a natural development (Score:2)
After all, most sports drinks already have the taste.
Gatorade (Score:2)
Remember Tang? (Score:2)
Tang, I don't think I will be able to drink it now.
Just the thing (Score:2)
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Look at my horse, my horse is amazing
Give him a lick
"Mmm, it tastes just like raisins"
When you stroke on his mane he turns into a plane
Then he turns back again when you tug on his winkie
"Ooh, that's dirty"
Do you think so?
Then I'd better not show you where the lemonade is made!
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Shouldn't that be:
Tinkle Tinkle little star ...