Here's To Brotherhood In Space.

Think of an Astronaut. The picture in your head is someone super-fit, super-intelligent, and super-adventurous. All true. But now there’s something that wasn’t in the original job description: on missions, astronauts now drink recycled urine. Doesn’t sound particularly appetizing, does it? But there’s that element to most jobs. Think of what a surgeon, day care assistant, a dentist or a plumber has to deal with every day. In short, there’s no job that only has a glamorous side. That’s why it’s called a job and they pay you. If it were all fun and games you’d be paying them. Anyone for a trip to the moon?

If someone can build a space ship then I’ve no doubt a super duper purifier is small change. I’d have hoped that the Astronauts have individual recycling kits but no. It’s a water recycling device that will process the crew’s urine for communal consumption. Bonds don’t get any stronger than this. And the Astronauts need that. It must be lonely out there.

Listen to one of the engineers, ‘other than a faint taste of iodine, it is just as refreshing as any other kind of water’.

Health 24 has the full story.

And in other matters Urine

consumption.