ENDEAVOUR—Bob Edwards Weekend, and NASA’s “ick” factor.

November 22, 2008— A series of error messages means the crew of Space Shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station won’t be able to drink water made from their own urine—darn the luck. Brace yourself and read on…

NASA wants to increase the number of people working full-time aboard the International Space Station to six. That raises questions of how to keep the outpost supplied with food, clothing, and specifically, water. The Marshall Space Center has created a system that takes the urine, sweat, and water from the hygiene station and puts it through a purification process until it’s drinkable.  A mock-up at the Kennedy Space Center press site is pictured here. The process builds on one used aboard the older Russian Salyut and MIR space stations that took moisture out of the atmosphere. The racks are loaded aboard the Italian Leonardo cargo carrier in Endeavour’s payload bay. It will be moved aboard the Space Station and installed during the mission.

The system’s designer says it can retrieve about ninety percent of the waste water aboard the outpost, generating about six gallons per day for the astronauts to drink…cheers!

On the book front…

Hardbound copies of “Final Countdown” are available for the holidays. I just put the finishing touches on an updated version that goes into paperback in the Spring of 2009. One of the latest reviews is from American Scientist Magazine, you can click here if you’d like to have a look…

http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-space-shuttle

If you’d like to get a copy as a stocking stuffer and support Orlando’s NPR station WMFE, go to wmfe.org and off to the right you’ll find a link to amazon.com where part of your purchase price goes to the station.

Also, many thanks to everyone at "Bob Edwards Weekend" (Bob, Chad, and Geoffrey) for the invitation to be on this week’s program. We had a great hour-long talk prior to the liftoff, and then stationed ourselves outside in pitch darkness for what may be NASA's last night-time launch.

More to come…