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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."
I didn't realize that NASA was so flush with cash!
*drum fill*
I'm here all week!
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I know these are probably tasteless questions, but...
1) Is there some sort of mechanism to ensure that Mr. Hanky the poo goes into the bowl?
2) Can male astronauts pee standing up in this toilet?
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
Brings new meaning to a "floater".
Life is not for the lazy.
I think NASA got a shitty deal there...
Summation 2
Yea, I don't get it and the article was light on details. If it is similar to the one already in use on the space station, why did they just pay $19m for it. Couldn't they have just improved upon the design they already had in use if it even needed improving? Why buy a whole new system? You wouldn't be designing from scratch, you already have one in service!
It's a crap!
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Lets see -
Project Mercury Atronauts - Shepherd had to piss in is suit on the launch pad - no catheter, no "adult diapers" ...
Gemini Astronauts - baggies with adhesive rims - strap it around your arse and take a dump, then "brown-bag it".
Apollo - baggies in the CM, diapers in the LEM.
$19 million to keep the crap and piss from floating all over the place - a lot cheaper than a "baggie failure", and a lot less time-consuming. Time is one thing that's at a premium - the $19 mill.saves them more than it costs.
It's not just a toilet, but a water reclamation unit. FTA: "...the urine is automatically transferred to a U.S. device that can generate potable water."
Plus, with this system very similar to the Russian module, there's no need for new training (and yes, you do need training to use a space toilet).
Finally--sorry to be indelicate--but in zero gravity, I'd say it's worth the $19M to avoid small droplets of urine end up in the electronics or worse, a small piece of poo float into your Tang.
I guess it could be a real bargain if the $19M includes delivery and installation.
It's a shame it costs $19 million. I've had nights after a few too many bean burritos where a toilet with leg restraints that kept me from flying off would have been very useful.
Where is the little shelf where they keep the three seashells?
IRC the shuttle one just collects the waste, and the waste is disposed of on the ground. Don't forget that the Shuttle is only on orbit for a couple of weeks max.
The Russian system is actually a full sewage system, and turns the urine back into drinking water. That saves launch costs at ~20,000/kgon the water. With 3-6 astronauts up there it pays to do this.
And it's unlikely that NASA could do this, the R&D alone would be more than that, and this is a full working toilet/waste reclaimation system.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Don't underestimate the need for privacy while dropping the "bomb", so to speak. For ISS, this is the ramp-up to 6 crew members. It takes longer on the Shuttle toilets than regular Earth toilets (30+ min.), it's safe to assume the strap-in and strap-out time makes Mir-type toilets take longer, too. The pictured unit in the article has an actual crapper to sit on instead of the Shuttle's butt-sucker to strap into (think vacuum-diaper). It just seems more dignified. IIRC, the Mir-type toilets also serve a shower/cleaning function. With 2-3 crew it is simple to negotiate toilet time. With 6 people, they will need the second toilet.
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Josh
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That still hold in outer space? Given that up and down is difficult to determine...
Camping on quad since 1996.
As others have mentioned, the shuttle shitter is not a recycling unit, it is effectively a port-o-potty that stores the waste until the shuttle lands. The Russian model recycles the water, good for a system to be used on a long-term orbiting platform.
NASA had developed a recycling toilet back in the 1990's for use on the space station, but compared to the Russian model, it sucked... or didn't properly suck, depending on your point of view. The Russian design is far more efficient, costs less and has the notable advantage of being tested and refined over the course of 20 years of service on Mir and Salyut stations.
An editorial comment on NASA vs. the Russian space agency:
NASA is run by retired astronauts, RSA is run by military leaders appointed by the State. Astronauts tend to view everything as human-centric (on manned missions), while the Russian leaders tend to look at the mission first and the crew second. Thus NASA has a safety-first mindset and one that puts the comfort of the crew (within reason) before efficiency.
When NASA was developing the space toilet in the 80's, they came up with a design similar to the one the Russians had been using on their space stations for almost 20 years. It involved hoses and baggies. Presented to an astronaut advisory board (think "focus group"), the male astronaut reaction was almost universally "I ain't stickin' my boys in no hose!" and the design was scrapped in favor of a brutally inefficient design involving membranes, baffles and a gentle pressure differential.
Faced with similar reaction in the Russian (then Soviet) cosmonauts, one can only imagine that the answer was along the lines of "You will stick what we tell you to stick where we tell you to stick it, Comrade!"
Captain's log, September 29th, 2007...