How Much Urine This Astronaut Will Drink in a Year

It's only 730 liters. Oh, and there's some sweat in there, too
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 16, 2015 1:18 PM CDT
How Much Urine This Astronaut Will Drink in a Year
In this Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015 image made from video provided by NASA, astronauts Scott Kelly, left, and Kjell Lindgren, speak aboard the International Space Station.   (NASA via AP)

A trip to space means watching spectacular sunsets and your poop burn up in the atmosphere like shooting stars, according to NASA, which breaks down what Scott Kelly is up to halfway through his year-long stay in space. "Your feces will not be shooting stars," an infographic notes—unless you become an astronaut, the Washington Post adds, quipping, "If that's not a motivation to stay in school, I don't know what is." More of what future astronauts can expect:

  • What a view: Kelly will see a total of 10,944 sunrises and sunsets, in the same time that we on Earth will see just 684.

  • Shooting poops: His feces—equaling about 180 pounds over the year, NASA guesses—will be dumped into space and burn up in the atmosphere. Consider that the next time you see a shooting star.
  • Who's thirsty?: Kelly will drink some 730 liters of recycled urine and sweat—courtesy of Russian astronauts—over 12 months. Yum.
  • Keeping in shape: He'll exercise for 700 hours and run 648 miles on a special space treadmill to keep strong. But that won't keep fluid—enough to fill a large bottle of soda—from moving from his legs toward his head.
  • Catching rays: He'll also get a fair amount of radiation exposure. To rival him, you’d have to fly from Los Angeles to New York 5,250 times.
Click to see why Lego went to space earlier this month. (More astronauts stories.)

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