Space station recycling urine to water

At the international space station, it was one small sip for man and a giant gulp of recycled urine for mankind. Astronauts aboard the space station celebrated a space first yesterday by drinking water that had been recycled from their urine, sweat and water that condenses from exhaled air. They said "cheers," clicked drinking bags and toasted NASA workers on the ground who were sipping their own version of recycled drinking water. "The taste is great," American astronaut Michael Barratt said. Then as Russian Gennady Padalka tried to catch little bubbles of the clear water floating in front of him, Barratt called the taste "worth chasing." He said the water came with labels that said: "drink this when real water is over 200 miles away." The urine recycling system is needed for astronaut outposts on the moon and Mars. It also will save NASA money because it won't have to ship up as much water to the station by space shuttle or cargo rockets. It's also crucial as the space station is about to expand from three people living on board to six. The recycling system had been brought up to the space station last November by space shuttle Endeavour, but it couldn't be used until samples were tested back on Earth and a stuck valve was fixed on Monday. So when it came time to actually drink up, NASA made a big deal of it.