United Nations satellite UNESCOSat to test viability of astronaut poo as space fue

THE United Nations is preparing to go boldly where no man has gone before. At least, not without surgical gloves and a peg on his nose. UNESCOSat is the UN's first satellite. It's a $US5 million project to promote global cooperation, education and our shared heritage as we push further into space as a race. A large part of the push requires fuel - namely, hydrogen. And one of the best ways to harvest hydrogen is to get bacteria to create it from waste products. The problem is, nobody has properly studied how bacteria behave in microgravity, so the UN's using its first mission to carry several bacterial payloads in order to see how they cope with it all. More

(Source: NEWS.com.au - Nov 23)