Joined Aug 2014
L7: Teacher
Forum Thread
Space Shuttle Johns: The Art of Crapping in Zero G
June 2, 2018 at
08:29 PM
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Free-floating poop has been a hazard of space travel since the days of the moon landings. Coming up with a practical way of replicating the earthbound poop experience took many years, many engineers, and a whole lot of ingenuity. While few explorers like to discuss it, taking a space dump is its own kind of heroism.
The peeing apparatus is just a funnel, a hose and a vacuum, but it's relatively easy to use. Astronauts attached a bright yellow suction tube to their genitals that milks them like a cow. The pee then goes into a recycling system that turns it back into water. That's kind of cool. The worst part is the manure.
"They had three different sizes of funnels and the guys were always choosing the largest size," said Mark Roberts, a tour guide at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in NYC
Feces without gravity tend to cling to the skin's surface. Droppings come out in curls instead of straight down, mashing itself against the skin. Stools tend to fly away and bounce around. More than one crew has been terrorized by rogue turds hovering in the air.
LMP Gene Cernan: Where did that come from?
CDR Tom Stafford: Give me a napkin quick. There's a turd floating through the air.
CMP John Young: I didn't do it. It ain't one of mine.
LMP Cernan: I don't think it's one of mine.
CDR Stafford: Mine was a little more sticky than that. Throw that away.
CMP Young: God almighty.
All three: (Laughter)
Transcript excerpt from: Apollo 10 (1969), their trip back from the Moon.)
NASA had toyed with a variety of designs, one took the feces and pulped it. During STS-1's reentry, fecal dust got into the environmental control system and a small amount ended up in the main cabin. The danger was for the material to come into contact with the astronauts' eyes, nose, or throats – basically any part of the human body that is moist by nature – it would reconstitute. And that could become a serious problem quickly.
Modern space crapper uses air entrainment, or gentle air flows, to suction rectal expulsion away from the buttock. But it made one frustrating demand of its users: proper anal alignment. With a 4-inch opening compared to a conventional toilet's 18 inches, astronauts had to position their butthole perfectly in order to avoid any escaping muck. You're trying to hit a pretty small target, and there are accidents.
After the tank starts getting full, which is every 10 days or so, "you have to put a rubber glove on, and pack it down." And occasionally the astronauts will have to play catch with any stray waste material they may find wafting around the cramped space station. What then? No one is going to recycle THAT. The best thing NASA knows to do with it is to shoot it out of the International Space Station and let it burn up in Earth's atmosphere. You think that's a shooting star? Go ahead, make a wish.
Fun Fact: Astronauts drop about a half pound of poo a day, or 180 pounds a year in space.
Plagiarized Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.or
http://www.nola.com/science/index..._spac.h
https://www.mirror.co.u
https://www.smithsonian
https://www.popsci.com/brief-hist...g-in-space
https://www.popsci.com/blog-netwo...nt-systems
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51...ping-space
https://www.express.co.
https://www.space.com/22597-space...ained.h
The peeing apparatus is just a funnel, a hose and a vacuum, but it's relatively easy to use. Astronauts attached a bright yellow suction tube to their genitals that milks them like a cow. The pee then goes into a recycling system that turns it back into water. That's kind of cool. The worst part is the manure.
"They had three different sizes of funnels and the guys were always choosing the largest size," said Mark Roberts, a tour guide at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in NYC
Feces without gravity tend to cling to the skin's surface. Droppings come out in curls instead of straight down, mashing itself against the skin. Stools tend to fly away and bounce around. More than one crew has been terrorized by rogue turds hovering in the air.
LMP Gene Cernan: Where did that come from?
CDR Tom Stafford: Give me a napkin quick. There's a turd floating through the air.
CMP John Young: I didn't do it. It ain't one of mine.
LMP Cernan: I don't think it's one of mine.
CDR Stafford: Mine was a little more sticky than that. Throw that away.
CMP Young: God almighty.
All three: (Laughter)
Transcript excerpt from: Apollo 10 (1969), their trip back from the Moon.)
NASA had toyed with a variety of designs, one took the feces and pulped it. During STS-1's reentry, fecal dust got into the environmental control system and a small amount ended up in the main cabin. The danger was for the material to come into contact with the astronauts' eyes, nose, or throats – basically any part of the human body that is moist by nature – it would reconstitute. And that could become a serious problem quickly.
Modern space crapper uses air entrainment, or gentle air flows, to suction rectal expulsion away from the buttock. But it made one frustrating demand of its users: proper anal alignment. With a 4-inch opening compared to a conventional toilet's 18 inches, astronauts had to position their butthole perfectly in order to avoid any escaping muck. You're trying to hit a pretty small target, and there are accidents.
After the tank starts getting full, which is every 10 days or so, "you have to put a rubber glove on, and pack it down." And occasionally the astronauts will have to play catch with any stray waste material they may find wafting around the cramped space station. What then? No one is going to recycle THAT. The best thing NASA knows to do with it is to shoot it out of the International Space Station and let it burn up in Earth's atmosphere. You think that's a shooting star? Go ahead, make a wish.
Fun Fact: Astronauts drop about a half pound of poo a day, or 180 pounds a year in space.
Plagiarized Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.or
http://www.nola.com/science/index..._spac.h
https://www.mirror.co.u
https://www.smithsonian
https://www.popsci.com/brief-hist...g-in-space
https://www.popsci.com/blog-netwo...nt-systems
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51...ping-space
https://www.express.co.
https://www.space.com/22597-space...ained.h
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8 Comments
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Don't forget about the dude who invented it all...
crap is the problem here. Stop talking about ME.
crap is the problem here. Stop talking about ME.
No problem.
Just vent your anus to space.
It'll suck it all out and freeze dry it instantly.
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Don't forget about the dude who invented it all...