Trump goes a-rocking in "better you than me" hail to astronauts' urine recycling in space

By Charlie Monforte

US President Donald Trump went a-rocking the space agency's sector Monday when he hailed NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson with words "better you than me" after hearing the latter's report that while astronauts are in space they are recycling their urine and made it drinkable by them.

The President in jest did like a Rick Ross while on a video call with Whitson to convey that without the astronauts' none of this water shit really means anything. (It is Ross, the four-time Grammy-nominated hip-hop star, who re-popularized lately the quote with his "Rather You Than Me" album).

While on a video call, Whitson explained to the President that human waste is repurposed for consumption, offering a proof how valuable a method is recycling in space.

The joke has the loudest guffaw if it is taken literally, that is, Trump wanted space travelers to drink their urine for him.

"Water is such a precious resource up here that we also are cleaning up our urine and making it drinkable ... it's really not as bad as it sounds," Whitson said.

"I'm glad to hear that," Trump responded. "Better you than me," Trump said in CNN news report.

Trump went off script after Whitson described the technology to support long-duration manned trips to space - including a system that converts urine to drinking water for astronauts.

Whitson, 57, was setting a new record that day, marking 534 days in orbit, and counting on Monday, she beat NASA's previous record-holder Jeff Williams. But she remains still far short of the world title, which is being kept by Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka with his 879 days, the CNN news report added.

Trump boasted in a phone call to space, broadcast live on NASA television: "This is a very special day in the glorious history of American spaceflight."

"That's an incredible record to break," he added from the Oval Office, flanked by daughter Ivanka and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins.

But when Trump asked Whitson, "What are we learning from being in space?" and after he got the answer about the astronauts' urine, it was then that he went off script.