Can urine be used for radiation shielding?

I'm looking to use water as a radiation shielding device, but do not want to waste space on my ship with waste and other water byproducts. Rather than just storing waste, I plan to use it as part of my radiation shielding, particularly the urine.

A bit of background on my ship. The ship is not large, and is a 30 meter diameter sphere on the front of an atomic engine (not radiation shielded) with different levels; 25 meters for a spinning artificial gravity, 4 for a water filled layer of insulation, and the last meter filled with....waste. The layers of (semi) liquid are completely heated by the excess heat of the engine, and are separated by an inch think metal.

This is not about how to get this craft into space, but rather to travel in space with it. Assuming there is a small waste reclamation plant on the ship at some location, I plan to give this ship a long travel time, (to Pluto and back) with a crew of 4 people.

This is a bit of an awkward question to ask, but how well does urine (and possibly other waste) act as an additional radiation shield?

_{I expect they may not like the smell however.....}

Bonus: How well does flesh work as a radiation shield?

Edit: For all those curious about recycling the water for recirculation, I plan to, but the journey of the ship will be 34 years give or take. This means that not only will the water from urine be used, but also from fecal matter and other bodily fluids. Even then, there's diminishing returns on the amount of water reclaimed; although that's not a problem for the ISS, if my travellers are 3.5 billion miles out (~15 years at top speed) they will have a problem with replenishing their supplies along the way. I don't plan for them to encounter further water, so they'll need every drop. The process for fecal water reclamation is a bit longer and their water reclaimer is not suited to that amount of waste.

However, I don't feel that information is relevant to the question, but rather provides a bit of background as to why the question is in the form it's in and why I don't "just reclaim the water then store it".

posted over 6 years ago

Anoplexian - Reinstate Monica‭

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