Imagine you're an astronaut exploring the surface of Mars, when suddenly you fall ill or injure yourself. As your team struggles to get you safely back to base, you become seriously dehydrated. With their trusty -- and ingenious -- kit, the medical officer hooks into the drinking water supply, using it to create a saline solution that they can inject directly into your blood stream for quick and safe rehydration.
That's the idea behind the Intravenous Fluid Generation for Exploration Missions, or IVGEN, investigation that was conducted on the space station over five days in the spring of 2010. Since standard IV fluid bags used in hospitals would be too costly to send and hard to keep from spoiling on long-duration space missions, the ability to make fresh saline right from the drinking water supply could save the day in emergency scenarios.
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