Drinking Urine ? Why Not …

Have you ever think to drink your urine ? As in the earth still covered by fresh water maybe you wouldn’t do that. But how about if you on the out of space ? Urine could be one solution for drinking water.

These what the astronauts do in the outer space, they recycled urine for mankind. On last week they celebrated a space first by a drinking water that had been recycled from their urine, sweat and water that condenses from exhaled air.

American astronaut Michael Barratt said the taste is great. Then as Russian Gennady Padalka tried to catch little bubbles of the clear water floating in front of him, Barratt called the taste "worth chasing." "We are happy to have this water work through the system — we're happy to have it work through our systems," Barratt said.

The water came with labels that said: "drink this when real water is over 200 miles away." The urine recycling system is needed for astronaut outposts on the moon and Mars. It also will save NASA money because it won't have to ship up as much water to the station by space shuttle or cargo rockets.

It's also crucial as the space station is about to expand from three to six people living on board. The system of recycling had been brought up to the space station last November. But it couldn't be used until samples were tested back on Earth and a stuck valve was fixed on last Monday.

On the Russian side of the space station, moisture in the air — not urine — is turned into drinking water. The new system takes the combined urine of the crew from the toilet, moves it to a big tank, where the water is boiled off, and the vapor collected.

Six crew members are aboard it can make about six gallons from urine in about six hours. Some of us maybe feels distasteful by the idea of drinking recycled urine. But it also done on earth, but it take a lot of more time than in space that takes about a week. This technology has already been used for quick water purification after Asian Tsunami five years ago (2004).