That's how water recycling works on the ISS, and it's not specific to those two astronauts. Pretty similar to how water recycling works down on Earth too.
Also, the Crew-9 capsule launched with two empty seats, so they aren't even stranded anymore.
If we want to be pedantic, it's how it works IRL too. All the water on Earth has been here for an eternity, with all its piss, feces, cadavers and whatnot inside of it. Completely fine if properly reprocessed.
If you want to be really pedantic, water is created and destroyed all the time, it's just a relatively stable process. Water is destroyed in the upper atmosphere and by lightning, and is created in volcanic eruptions and combustion. (Among many other ways)
Good point. Starliner was always the plan in the event of an emergency evacuation, and there was also "lie on the floor of the Crew-8 Dragon" as a backup for the brief period between empty the Starliner return and the launch of Crew-9.
Really? Le big bags of wee can travel back to Earth on the deck in an emergency? What about the g forces? I thought the 'nauts needed custom molded seats to help distribute the force over the lungs, cardiovascular, etc. so they don't pass out as easily. Seriously, can I have the sauce?
I suppose "lie on the floor" was a bit of an exaggeration. It likely would have involved the transfer of the seats, or at least the seat liners, from Starliner.
NASA issued a $266,678 task award to SpaceX on July 14 for a "special study for emergency response." NASA said this study was not directly related to Starliner's problems, but two sources told Ars it really was. Although the study entailed work on flying more than four crew members home on Crew Dragon—a scenario related to Frank Rubio and the Soyuz MS-22 leaks—it also allowed SpaceX to study flying Dragon home with six passengers, a regular crew complement in addition to Wilmore and Williams.
In my opinion, the biggest risk unmitigatable risk would have been the lack of ports in Dragon for Butch and Suni to plug their Starliner IVA suits into.
Ah, ok, big canisters of air mix to secure them (with coated cable ties?) next to the improvised seats and all linked to the state of the art Boeing made suits, so they can breathe, at least. Perfection. XD
I don't remember NASA mentioning anything like that - either at the briefing I've just come across, or any other time they've talked about it.
So my guess is that they didn't bother. Just hoping that whatever could cause the crew to have to return to Earth in a hurry wouldn't also cause any problems with the cabin air in Dragon. (Problems like ... there not being any! Or it being filled with smoke, or ammonia.)
Perhaps they would've gone with your plan if they'd had all the necessary equipment.