Astronauts on the International Space Station will soon be able to drink their own recycled urine using a new system delivered by NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour which launched Friday.
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.”
Astronauts plan to install the system after Endeavour docks at the orbiting laboratory on Monday. The machine will use a distillation process that compensates for the absence of gravity to remove impurities from urine. Then the water will be combined with fluid from showers, shaving, tooth brushing and hand washing, as well as perspiration and water vapor that collects inside the astronauts’ space suits.
All this reclaimed water will go through a processing system to extract free gas and solid materials such as hair and lint. Afterward, the system will remove any remaining contaminants through a high-temperature chemical reaction.
The recycling machine should cut down the amount of water and consumables that must be launched to the station by about 15,000 pounds, or
6,800 kilograms, a year. And since it currently costs roughly $10,000 to ship a pint of fresh water to space, the money savings will be huge. Moreover, the system is part of a plan to expand the number of residents the space station can accommodate from three to six.
“As early as the late 1960s we knew sustaining life in space would require recycling water and oxygen,” Bob Bagdigian, the project manager for the overall Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support
System on the station, said in a release. “A number of us have experienced the entire life cycle of this technology, all the way from early ideas to implementation. Knowing that we will soon see this system completed gives us great pride.”