One Small Urine Sample From Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind

July 21st, 2008

NASA wants your urine, very badly.

The pee drive is to help engineers working on designing the new spaceship’s toilet.

Donations will be treated with a chemical that can hold solid particulates in the liquid so they don’t clog up the tubing in microgravity, said Leo Makowski, company spokesman for Hamilton Sundstrand, a contractor designing the new spaceship’s toilet.

“This is a preliminary test to see if this chemical is going to work the same way as it did on the [space] shuttle,” Makowski told Discovery News.

It’s difficult to come up with a faux urine, explained NASA’s Jim Lewis, the systems manager overseeing development of Orion’s potty. “That’s why we depend on collections.”