Why do Nasa astronauts drink Russian pee on the International Space Station?

Think you could drink recycled wee if it meant you would stay alive? That's the question astronauts have to answer before they go onto the International Space Station for a tour of duty. But while Nasa's people are happily gulping back wee-that-once-was, cosmonauts have chosen to go another way. Long-term space travel will always be dependent on water and food and its availability. But on the ISS, where personnel are expected to stay for months at a time, the ways of accessing water for drinking are from condensation and excretion as urine. Both US and Russian of the space station harvest their water out of the air, which is known as condensate, and comes from breath and sweat. More

(Source: Mirror.co.uk - Aug 29)