Calcitic astro-whiz clogs ISS piss recycler

The mysterious properties of astronaut piss are believed to be the cause of the International Space Station's extremely troublesome deployment of its $250 million urine-recycling system. Engineers attempting to troubleshoot the buggy barrel-shaped Urine Processor Assembly aboard the ISS now suspect that a high concentration of …

[Anonymous Coward]

12th February!

Better hope they have plenty of storage bags then, or do they vent it out to space - ala "Constellation Urine' as per Apollo 13 ?

[Mark York 3]

We've learned a lot more about urine than we"

Sorry about cutting the headline short but it seemed funny at the time.

Reminds me of a old documetory on BBC (2 seems more likely than 1), where the early astronauts used to have to crap into a bag (slightly adhesive at the top to stick to the flesh during said process) filled with a blue preservative gunk, the output had to be mashed into the gunk for examination by the boffins on the return home.

IIRC the astronauts would do the bag sealing & mashing for each other (a situation described as you really knew who your friends were) in order to stop "floaters" (sorry) escaping into the cabin.

I've got to go for the boffin icon, as they were the only ones really interested in the shit!

[Roger Kynaston]

They didn't have this problem on

Waterworld (fundamentally the same situation) where Kevin Costner watered his orange tree with some glass contraption!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tang? On a space shuttle?

How did they manage to smuggle *that* past the TSA screener?

[John Smith 19]

Is this a NASA development, or Russian sourced?

Only the Russians built up quite a lot of knowledge of the long term effects of space flight on the human bodies. I'd be surprised if they would be surprised by this.

BTW just as a double check why didn''t NASA take some astronaut urine samples during *development* just to make *sure* that LEO urine *is* the same as Earth urine.

Historically most waste has been burnt up but I guess some has been returned on the Shuttle flights. Was such a precaution too paranoid or too expensive (if it's coming down anyway what's so hard about putting some of it in a bottle)

Might this be a case of PPPPPP

[Anonymous Coward]

Calgon?

They have it sussed for dishwashers and washing machines, surely they can do a tablet for the re-wee system as well?

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Re-wee?

I prefer to call it a "re-piss" system - it sounds much more technocratic and NASA-esque.

[Nigel 11]

Showering in impurities

Anyone who has ever gone swimming in the sea really shouldn't worry about slight imperfections in the pee recycling system when showering. Think about all those fish ... and that's before we add our own effluents.

And last time there was a drought in London, they told those of us living in West London not to reduce flushing our toilets, because they needed the "water" in East London ....

I'll drink to it, but not sure if I'd want to drink from it.

[Evil Auditor]

Oh dear!

I used to live in Tower Hamlets. And I thought that's how water tastes like all over London.

[ravenviz]

NASA TLA's / toilet humour

Urine Processor Assembly = U-Pass

[Anonymous Coward]

Needs a new name

re-pee(t) ?

peecycle

weecycle

we re-pee?

waste not want not..

[Flood]

I see...

No wonder astronauts walk around with their own diapers...

[Bill Fresher]

Vitamin K

Sounds like the astronauts could do with taking some vitamin K to keep the calcium in their bones where it should be.