I assume it tastes like Gatorade after they add some fruity favoring to it.

Sure. Like fish & bugs and people & bears & ducks & etc... don't pee & poo in rivers and lakes... The EARTH is a closed loop system. It's a REALLY HUGE one, but really, what's the difference?

not high on my list of things to do. actually i would never want to if i had another choice, but i wouldnt not drink it either. if it was say that or dehydration.

i don't know what everyone's so paranoid about....

the water purification, as the article says, is LOT better than any bottled water company uses....

if there's such system for home use, i would use it myself....

Where you think tap water comes from? What do you think happens at waste treatment plants...water is treated, released back into the rivers, which inturn goes right back into water treatment plants right back into your tap. Bottled water is the same stuff just processed further to take back out chlorine, iodine, ect.

You think they use this water to take showers? I know zero g, no shower but damn that would be funny.

Gee, purified water, is just water, H2O. All water is H2O. Purifying urin is just separating H2O from all the salts and other stuff it contains.

So no difference. Id drink it just the same.

Apparently they don't take showers much (they prefer sponge baths because showering involves wearing a breathing apparatus to avoid water up the nose/in the mouth and it's a bunch of headaches in general) but yes, they'll be using it for washing too.

Everyone drinks recycled urine. Who cares. Btw - this isn't the "first time" this has been done.

I know that conceptually, this is no different than water treatment here on Terra Firma. But still...yuck!

Bear Grylls drinks his own urine all the time without even treating it!

As already said, the Earth does the same thing every day. The water you drink has probably been peed out hundreds of times over the course of Earth's history.

depending on the urine purification technology used this maybe a very bad idea for them to do.

for example does that technology filter out viruses, bacteria, dangerous chemicals?

if not astronauts can become sick from drinking water purified from the unrine of a sick astronaut.

You already have been.

And FYI Urine is sterile people.

Yeah, I mean Kevin Costner did it in Water World, why shouldn't I? I think that scene, ultimately, lead to the success of the film... Oh wait...

uhmmm...i would think bunches of rocket scientists would have thought of killing micro-organisms during making of said filtration system...

they ARE rocket scientists, after all....

simple UV lamps or microwave would kill those things in seconds....

Next time they do a spacewalk they can paint a small "p" in front of the ISS...

Now I'll know what to ask for when I'm at the bar!

Pee...it's the new Tang!

Urine is mostly sterile, and definitely safe to drink.

Most people forget that urine is mostly water. Water is the filter of the human body. Waste that our cells produce, collectivley known as urea, ends up in our bloodstream. Our kidneys remove the urea, along with excess water, and the result is urine.

When you drink your own urine, you are putting more water back into your system, but you are also putting in the stuff your body is trying to get rid of. This is not bad for you at first, but if you drink no water, only your own urine for an extended period of time, the urea content of your urine will increase. It becomes difficult to urinate, painfull sometimes. But note, this is after drinking your own urine for days.

Its like using a dirty air filter. It works, but soon the filter will become more and more clogged with dust. Just like an air filter, the urine, which now must dispose of more and more waste in the same amount of water, becomes saturated. This is observable, as if you do drink your own urine over a few days it becomes darker in color. Similarly, the more water you drink, the lighter your urine is.

Astronauts on the Apollo 13 mission were stuck in space without power. For the last four days or so of their journey, they had run out of liquid water. They drank their own urine, which kept them from dehydration while they came home. I am not simply using the movie as the source of that info, they did in fact have to drink their own urine.

Doctors used to check for diabetes by tasting patients urine. If it was sweet it indicated high blood sugar. Luckily we have much more pleasant methods now.

The bottom line:

Urine is sterile. You can drink it. I don't know why you would want to, but it is completely safe.

We already do drink our own urine, and that of every other human being who has lived on earth...they call it the Water Cycle. Doesn't matter if it is created by nature or technology, the result is the same... purified H2O.

Instead of using their brains, and bring in some vegetation, and use that kind of water to water the plants. the plants on their turn exhale the water in the air, which can be caught by an air climatizer.
Any water recycled from the air is purer than earth's spring water.

Though I can understand the logic behind this. In a same way things go with water on earth. Water from the sewer also goes to the sea, or lake, where it's been sucked up by a water purification system, that will clean the water as tap water.

I work in a perforation/habitational vessel, and we recycle a lot of water over here because is to expensive and energy demanding to desalinate sea water... we don't talk about where the water we drink comes from... we just use it, and nobody is sick or anything, there's a very tight quality control about that.

i agree its normally ok to drink your own urine that has gone through purification process, i was just bringing up the risks of drinking urine from a sick individual, for example someone infected with virus and the fact that the purification technology may have limits which increases the risk of contamination. for example person with aids that has not shown up yet in tests so they are sent into space for a prolong period of time, if everyone is drinking that person's urine, albiet purified, they may end up with aids. and it's not specific to said, it could be someother virus or prion, like mad cow disease, ect...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

Looks like this has already been brought up, but believe it or not you probably already do!! Water gets recycled here on earth how? So there you have it.

we're linking wikipedia now!! SWEET!

I totally would. Its also worth noting drinking pee wont really harm you if you have a functional liver. Back when I was in high school, my biology teacher gave one of students who was in jeapordy of failing extra credit for drinking his own pee. He did it of course and said it tasted salty. But getting back to the topic here, we would be drinking water, so I totally would drink it.

Couldn't taste any worse than Diet Dr. Pepper I guess....

I sure would like to drink water from that machine, that is, being onboard too...
[/dreaming]

Indeed hehe..

lol poor jane. The astronauts are drinking their own recycled urine only. You are the dummy on the ground drinking recycled sewage that the rats have been wading and peeing in. And you do it every day.

What the hell did you think the bill for sewage and waste water runoff was for? Not only are you drinking your own pee but you are actually paying the city to clean your pee and feed it right back to you.

Its technically safer to drink this than faucet water. Despite the cleaning methods of your local treatment plant everyday medications make it through the system. You end up taking your neighbors medication whether you need it or not. Its becoming a real concern as the levels rise in congruence with deformities and other medical conditions.