SPACE: NASA converts pee to drinkable water on International Space Station.

Future crewed deep space missions that will last months or even years will be very different from any that have come before. Until now, astronauts have either carried their own supplies along or relied on regular visits from cargo ships. As to waste products, these were simply disposed of in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, deep space missions don’t have that luxury.

A mission to Mars, for example, could last two years. That’s a lot of water to take along at a gallon (3.8 L) per person per day. If the spacecraft has a crew of four, that comes out to about nine tonnes of water at a minimum. It also ends up as tonnes of pee.

The ideal craft would be essentially self-sufficient with the ability to recycle air and water as well as growing its own food like a closed ecosystem. As the first step toward this, NASA has been testing the water recovery components of its Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) aboard the ISS.

Consisting of a Water Recovery System, a Water Processor Assembly (WPA), a Urine Processor Assembly (UPA), and the Brine Processor Assembly (BPA), the ECLSS recovers and reprocesses water on the space station through a series of steps, from urine as well as crew breath and sweat that accumulates in the air, and then purifies it into drinking water.
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The result is a 98% recovery rate. This can be accomplished on Earth, but the ECLSS can do the same thing in zero gravity.

If NASA could just figure out how to do this with scotch, you’d only ever have to buy one more bottle of each of your favorites.