Science: Dry Space Run

Just before stepping out of an airtight mock-up nose cone at Ohio's Wright Air Development Center last week, Civilian Engineer Courtney Metzger took a swig of water. "It tastes much better than the ordinary kind in the supply tank," he reported to Space Physician John Paul Stapp. Agreed Stapp: "It's no worse than some of the stuff you get at cocktail parties." As part of Project Hermes, a program that aims to give the first space travelers all the comforts of hygiene, the water had been distilled from Metzger's urine.

In the longest test...