The space toilet that flew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Newsletter Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news. Sign Up. Already a subscriber? Want more? More From Discover. Recommendations From Our Store. Stay Curious. View our privacy policy.
To pee, they can sit or stand and then hold the funnel and hose tightly against their skin so that nothing leaks out. To poop, astronauts lift the toilet lid and sit on the seat — just like here on Earth.
But this toilet starts suctioning as soon as the lid is lifted to prevent things from drifting away — and to control the stink. Since water is heavy and takes up a lot of space, it is better to recycle pee rather than bring up clean water from Earth. All astronaut pee is collected and turned back into clean, drinkable water. Sometimes, astronaut poop is brought back to Earth for scientists to study, but most of the time, bathroom waste — including poop — is burned.
Poop is vacuumed into garbage bags which are put into airtight containers. Astronauts also put toilet paper, wipes and gloves — gloves help keep everything clean — in the containers too. The crew insisted he stay put, so Shepard let them know he was going to go in his seat. The latex cuff was connected to a plastic tube, valve, clamp, and a collection bag.
It wasn't a great system, and it sometimes leaked. Source: NASA. NASA even has a log of all the individual poops collected on the Apollo missions. Skylab supported three crewed space missions in and ; the last and longest one was 84 days. After they relieved themselves, the men aboard Skylab had to vacuum-dry their feces with heat so that they could be dumped into the waste tank or studied. Their water came through a push-button shower head on a flexible hose, and drained into Skylab's vacuum system.
The toilet system still wasn't that easy to use — the opening was less than 4 inches wide , about a quarter of the size of a regular toilet hole.
Astronauts had to be t oilet trained on Earth first, and some test runs even included a special under-the-seat camera so they could perfect their aim. A separate funnel equipped with a fan suctions their pee away. But Whitson wants NASA to do better : " We want a closed loop system, which means we have to recycle all our water," she said. The brand name for the gear was Absorbancies, but the company that made them for NASA doesn't exist anymore.
NASA now has its own stockpile. As the Associated Press reported , the toilet breakdown was a problem, since it was the only one on the station at the time. The system uses a little access port on the crotch of a spacesuit or garment, to which various bags or tubes could be attached to collect waste.
This invention could also help astronauts change their underwear without taking off a spacesuit. Thatcher Cardon worked nights and weekends on the prototypes with his wife and two teenage kids. Luckily they have special barf bags that they can use that come with a liner to help you wipe your mouth after. The bags are also sealable so they can be closed and then thrown away with other wet waste! Once you return back to Earth after being away, it can take a week or maybe more to feel normal again.
Adjusting to gravity on Earth can make your body feel five times heavier than it really is and this can also make you feel very dizzy and sick. Exercising is the best way to feel back to normal quickly!
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