:confused:We are high school students doing a real project on waste in space. We need information on how urination is done and how the waste is disposed of while in space.
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Well, we're all done with our project now and we wanted to thank you for all of your help :D One of the interesting things we found was that though the astronauts don't recycle urine into drinking water, the cosmonauts do :eek: Also, they must have spent years figuring this stuff out because it's CRAZY. Thanks again for all of your help. ;)

[This message has been edited by Jac-Am-Tom-Osc (edited June 12, 2000).]

I'm not sure about solid waste, but the toliets basicly suck wast into it so it doesn't float around the ship. Try to picture using a regular toilet in a micro gravity. First the water would float out of the bowl and so would waste. It would make for a very disgusting ride. The urine is recycled into dirnking water. Sounds gross, but totaly safe. As for soild waste try going to NASA website and shoot them an e-mail. They are accualy rather like it when people take intrest in science and the space program.

In case of Mir, Russians use their discardable cargo craft to send waste into the atmosphere to burn up upon re-entry. Americans just keep the waste onboard the space shuttle and dispose of it after landing -- just like any passenger plane would. I don't know what the plans are for ISS, but it's probably going to be one of the two.

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I am; therefore I think.

if i were head of that devision at nasa, i would defientally just jetticent it out into the cosmos, or better yet, at a passing ufo, because i see no point in keeping it, there are like trillion on top of triloions of light centerys out there for the crap to float aroiund in, and we bring it back down to our sm,all planet!!!¿¿?¿?¿

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when christianity ruled the world, it was called the dark ages.

-dexter (nimrod242 :aol sn)

[This message has been edited by dexter (edited June 12, 2000).]