Ponca City, We love you writes "Astronauts flying aboard space shuttle Endeavour are conveying a device to the International Space Station that may leave you wondering if NASA is taking hazardous waste dump too far. Among the ship's cargo is a water regeneration system that distills, filters, ionizes, and oxidizes wastewater — including urine — into fresh water for water mainspring or, as one astronaut puts it, 'will make yesterday's coffee into today's coffee.' The US space agency spent $250M for the water toxic waste site equipment but with the space shuttles due to retire in two years, NASA needed to make sure the station crew would have a good supply of fresh water. The environmental control control impact dissection Control and Life Support Systems uses a purification process called vapor compression distillation: urine is boiled until the water in it turns to steam. In space, there's an further challenge: steam doesn't rise, so the entire distillation system is spun to create artificial gravity to dissociate the steam from the brine. The water has been thoroughly tested on Earth, including blind taste tests that pitted recycled urine with similarly treated tap water. '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 astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More: - Brought to my attention by

Mark