One small pee for a person, one giant urine sample for NASA

William Atkins
Wednesday, 16 July 2008 22:17

Science - Space

The rules are contained within the “Urine Collection Study Donor Request ” memo sent out on Friday, July 11, 2008, to all “Houston-SLS associates, employees at 2200 Space Park, and any visitors to the building."

As stated, these rules are:

•    “Do not add urine to the collection that was collected more than 1 hour before addition. This is necessary so that urine is exposed to the pretreatment chemical in a timely manner.”
•    “Do not add urine with blood in it into the system. This is an issue of personnel safety.”
•    “Some previous tests have limited donation size to 350mL per donation. While this is not a regulation of our testing, you are not encouraged to over-hydrate as this could dilute the urine we collect.”
•    “Our test is meant to be as flight-like as possible. This means that unlike in the doctor's office, you do not need to worry about starting collection midstream. Our testing will be more accurate if you collect as much of the entire urination as possible including the beginning.”

In addition, according to the Spaceref.com article, the procedure for donations is:

“At work

•    Take a wide mouthed beaker to the bathroom to collect your urine. You may pick up a beaker from the first floor lab in advance.
•    Fill the beaker and take it to the first floor lab to pour it into the collection.
•    Fill out the donation sheet as instructed in step 2."

"At home

•    If you are collecting urine at home in the morning before coming in to work, remember to take collection beakers and labels home with you. You are welcome to take both a wide mouthed beaker for collection and bottle with a lid for transport. Record the volume of your sample before transferring as the bottles with lids are not marked with volumetric measurements.
•    Once you put the urine into the bottle with a lid, fill out a label or a piece of masking tape with the time of collection and sample volume and stick it on the bottle.
•    Urine older than 1 hour cannot be put into the system, so please keep that in mind when collecting urine at home. We suggest that morning urine be collected at home but not nighttime urine.”

The Orion Program urine collection drive starts on Monday, July 21, 2008, and goes through Thursday, July 31, 2008.

For additional articles on the pee-provider program, go to NASA Watch “Don't Flush - Donate To Space Exploration!”.