NASA Purchases $19M Russian Space Toilet

Gary writes "NASA has paid $19 million for a Russian-built international space station toilet system. The toilet system, similar to the one already in use in the station's Zvezda Service Module, is scheduled to arrive at the space station in 2008 and will offer more privacy for a crew expected to double from three to six by 2009. The space station toilet physically resembles those used on Earth, except it has leg restraints and thigh bars to keep astronauts and cosmonauts from floating away. NASA says purchasing the multi million dollar toilet is a bargain compared to developing one from scratch."

Comments

pen vs pencil

[helfen]

in fact, it's not true story, but who cares after all:

During the space race back in the 1960's, NASA was faced with a major problem. The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space. NASA went to work. At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the "Astronaut Pen". Some of you may remember. It enjoyed minor success on the commercial market.
The Russians were faced with the same dilemma.
They used a pencil.

$19 million for a toilet

[saibot834]

Wow. Shit.

Did you notice

[rufty_tufty]

That the urine from it is recycled into potable water?

Also i wonder why it wasn't discussed in the article why the toilet designed for the Space shuttle couldn't be used. I'd hazard a guess that it is an integration issue, the Russian one is designed for integration into a space stations systems, whereas the shuttle one is designed to standalone.
Kind of like you have a different toilet in your house vs the one in a camper van.

Can someone be more informative?

Just like NASA

[Chayak]

When I read this I couldn't help but remember a rather amusing fact of the space race. NASA spent millions developing a pen that would write in space, the Russians just used a pencil. It actually makes me wonder just how high tech this high dollar toilet system is or is it just heavy on common sense design?

Please can this put an end to the pencil joke

[Jacques Chester]

You know, the one where NASA spends hojillions on a space-pen, and the Russians just use a pencil.

Re:Please can this put an end to the pencil joke

[gurps_npc]

As others said, that joke is neither funny nor anything close to the truth.

In point of fact, NASA was using pencils for quite some time, but were complaining about it - bits of graphite get into the air.

A NASA employee heard about the problem, invented a pen that can work in zero-G spending his own personal money to do it (not millions). Then he sold it to NASA rather cheaply (again, not millions). He did end up sellling his COMPANY that made the pen for millions.