Not a bad place to be, taken all in all:
Astronauts tinkered Sunday with a troublesome piece of equipment designed to help convert urine and sweat into drinkable water, which is vital to allowing the international space station crew to double to six.
Station commander Michael Fincke and space shuttle Endeavour astronaut Donald Pettit changed how a centrifuge is mounted in a urine processor, which is part of the newly delivered $154 million water recovery system. The centrifuge is a spinning device that helps separate the water from urine…
“We’re very hopeful for this, and if not, we have a few other tricks up our sleeves,” Fincke said from the space station after the task was finished.
Geez. I thought I had it bad.
At least the urine is being used for peaceful purposes rather than being converted to weapons grade.
Having to drink one’s own urine [not good] much less anyone else’s [eeeww] is serious business, all right. I think that, no matter how ambitious I was to ‘boldly go where no one has gone before’, that would be a deal breaker for me.
Marianne
Didn’t you just know it, some old phart of a vet, was going to break the barrier and just go “Brain-Dead Stupid.” Well, I guess it’s my turn.
As long as the the system works, that’s just fine. Can you imagine, being the first person to learn by experience the system failed? NO THANK YOU!
@SJBill, are you sure?
@Marianne, If people understood the situation, would/could we “go boldly”, in both senses of the word?
@Lex, Marianne and SJBill, thoroughly enjoyed this post and comments. Please enjoy your Thanksgiving, free from such concerns.
Reminds me of the only intentional joke in 2001 – A Space Odyssey as the astronaut is confronted with the lengthy list of instructions as to how to operate the john in the space station.
The centrifuge is a spinning device that helps separate the water from urine.
I worked with ultracentrifuges back in my biochemistry days, but I rather doubt that any of those even could manage this trick. I’ll bet that this centrifuge’s mission is to separate feces from water.
The ‘fuge might be used to drop submicron particles (cells, oxalate crystals, etc.) from suspension or possibly to drive the fluid through a fine molecular seive or ion exchange column.
Sorry, I’m a geek.