NASA's Secret Mission Patch

The Atlantis shuttle flight on November 15, 1990 also carried a couple super classified payload--including "a stealthy satellite inspection spacecraft, often referred to as “Prowler”, designed to sneak up on other satellites undetected, photographing and measuring them"--that was symbolized by the darkened mirror image of the shuttle in the official mission patch. NASA's party line was that the "bottom orbiter, a black and white mirror image, acknowledges the thousands of unheralded individuals who work behind the scenes." But there was actually another SECRET patch.

But NASA has never disclosed that there was also a secret patch designed for this mission: an emblem that had a darker border (Figure 2). Most notably, the shuttles were inverted, with the black orbiter—the classified mission—on top, and the white orbiter on the bottom. It was an inside joke by the all-military crew about the true nature of their mission.

No Golden Eye?

[Via]

NASA's Recycled Water Recipe: Urine and Sweat

On the next shuttle mission to the International Space Station NASA will be testing their new $250 million "water recovery system." Designed to resupply the station's water by recycling approximately 93 percent of the water on board, "urine, sweat in the air, waste water and other forms of moisture will be fed into the system, distilled and sent back to the tap"

So, again — how does it taste? Your intrepid reporter opened one of the bottles of “Purified Recycled Water” that Mr. Bagdigian brought with him. The wryly worded label was a little intimidating: “We use only the finest ingredients! Urine, Perspiration, Food Vapors, Bath Water, Simulated Animal Waste, and a touch of Iodine. No Carbs or Calories Added.”

With that as my verbal drum roll, I took a sip. Aside from a slight tang of iodine, it tasted like, well, water. I’ve had tap water that tasted much more like things I don’t want to think about.

Thanks, but no thanks.

WHAT DOES SPACE SMELL LIKE?

For all my curiosity about cosmology and obsession with shows on the History and Discovery Channel about the Universe I realized that I've never considered the question of whether the outer space has a smell or odor.  Well, now I have some idea thanks to this NASA astronaut:

It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.

Mmm.  O' delicious metallic fumes.