Celestial Bodies

This next installation of "toilets in space" comes to us indirectly via Agent Double-L-Awesome (and her facebook page)...

While the rest of us were mourning national tragedy, something else happened on September 11th, last Friday, when Space.com announced that an unusual glowing trail in the night sky was, in fact, a large amount of water from human liquid waste being ejected into space from the shuttle Discovery.

The amount of water ejected, according to the report, was approximately 150 lbs (or 68 kilos). The reason it was so much was that they were not able to eject any water during the 10-day visit to the International Space Station, due to external experiments taking place on the station's structure. (Also, if the ISO's main toilet was still broken, then there were probably more people using it).

When the waste water is released, it immediately freezes into tiny bits of ice, and then the heat from the sun causes it to sublimate and vaporize. Meanwhile, the light catches it and makes it look all pretty.

Space enthusiasts who watched the shuttle guessed as to what the strange trail formation was. One (Abe Megahed, who took the photo that you see), got it right when he wondered if it might have been a "massive, record-breaking urine dump?" Indeed, it was.

Toilets in Space!

Astronauts have to put up with a lot. Weird space suits. Freeze dried ice cream. Extreme temperatures. Not only that, when you're on the space station and your toilet craps out, you're pretty much sh*t out of luck.

That's what happened on the International Space Station (ISS) recently. And if you're superstitious, you might even think, that's what they get for putting 13 astronauts on one space station. Mission Control even told them to hang an "Out of Order" sign on the door. I bet the astronauts are pissed. But hey, I guess this is just a reminder that astronauts are people, too.

And since they are people, and they probably digest food and liquids, this means they need to evacuate every once in a while. And thanks to Prince Phillip's inquisitive mind, we have this lovely article to tell us how it's done.

Thing is, when you're on the space station, and the toilet is broken, you can't exactly just head out to the nearest McDonald's. But they do have the Shuttle Endeavor's facilities, which almost certainly are more cramped and uncomfortable than the ISS one looks to be:



And if they all crap out, then they reportedly have "Apollo-era" urine collection bags on hand. No mention of what to do with No. 2. But that sounds great. I'm sure they're real happy about that. There is also another back-up toilet on the Russian side, and that will be nice if the Americans get to use it, since, earlier this year, a Russian apparently got upset at not being able to use the US toilet due to "billing and cost issues." Sigh. Even when you get into space, you can't get away from it all.

Photos: NASA/BBC

{Thanks to Agent B for submitting the story from Slashdot!}