Astronauts drink recycled urine

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 on Wednesday. They drank water that had been recycled from their urine, sweat and water 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 system was brought up to the space station last November, but it hadn't been used because of testing and problems. It will save NASA lots of money because less water will need to be shipped up on the shuttle or cargo rockets. The recycling system is also needed for astronaut outposts on the moon and Mars. – (Sapa, May 2009)

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Purified urine for astronauts