they've recycled urine since skylab and possibly as far back as the Apollo missions

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

When you get right down to it every drop of water in existence has been "through the system" several million (billion?) times. Not that big a deal.

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"Gentlemen, there are only two types of naval vessels..........Submarines, and Targets" -- U.S. Navy Submarine SONAR Instructor.

If there is to be a long time presence in space then Astonauts had beter get used to having to recycle a lot more then urine.(shudder)!!!!

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Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care

As they used to say in St, Cloud, Minnesota, an city on the Mississippi river: Flush twice, the twin cities need drinking water, followed by hundreds more on the route to the Gulf of Mexico.

duke

There are far greater contamination problems that a bit of urine in a watershed. Mercury, and many other metals, and an almost endless list of organic chemicals from industrial discharges. Then a possible radioactive spill is another nasty. And bacterial wastes ....


d

they've recycled urine since skylab and possibly as far back as the Apollo missions

The Apollo missions were all fairly short, and Apollo and the Shuttle both use fuel cells to generate electricity.

The "exhaust" from those fuel cells is water.

The Russians were very happy when the Shuttle visited MIR, they were always happy to take the "waste" water from the Shuttle, and NASA added fittings to capture what was normally dumped overboard.

And, as someone pointed out, there is no "new" water on Earth, it's all recycled.

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If there is to be a long time presence in space then Astonauts had beter get used to having to recycle a lot more then urine.(shudder)!!!!

You know that most every farmer has a device called a manure spreader. Manure is one of the richest foods on the planet. Great for feeding bacteria and plants. Yes it will have to be recycled too.

If there is to be a long time presence in space then Astronauts had better get used to having to recycle a lot more then urine.(shudder)!!!!

You know that most every farmer has a device called a manure spreader. Manure is one of the richest foods on the planet. Great for feeding bacteria and plants. Yes it will have to be recycled too.

Quite true Gary after all the round trip to our nearest planet Mars is,with present tech,about 30 months not counting down time and I think it will be quite a large crew with corresponding food and water requirements.

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Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care