NASA Wants Your Urine

NASA needs your urine and is holding a drive to benefit the Orion Program, whose aim is to put astronauts back on the moon by 2020. The urine donation will aid engineers who are working on designing the new spaceship's toilet.

If you're in the area at the Johnson Space Center, stop by at 2200 Space Park and donate your urine for a good cause.

From Discovery News: "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."

In a memo sent out to employees, it outlined a few rules regarding the donation:

-Pure urine samples only - no blood

-Maximum contribution - 350 milliliters

The drive is being held by Hamilton Sundstrand and begins July 21st and runs daily to the end of July until the coffers are full. Their daily goal is to obtain 30 liters (about 8 gallons!) and welcome all bladder contributions. Donations will be made semi-confidential; you will be assigned a donor number so that they can keep track of donations with listing any names.

They are only taking fresh urine samples. Anything older than one hour will not be used. So for those of you that wake up in the middle of the night to take your pee, don't save it, it'll be useless.

I'll leave you with a quote from the movie Forrest Gump:

President Kennedy: "Congratulations. How do you feel?"
Forrest Gump: "I gotta pee."

Good luck to all who donate!

Via: Discovery News