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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!
My blog
Brings new meaning to a "floater".
Life is not for the lazy.
I think NASA got a shitty deal there...
Summation 2
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.
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.
Weirdest. Topic. Ever.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
It seems to me you'd want to minimise leakage. On earth spattering the surroundings is an annoyance [1], in space it can be catastrophic. Why take the chance?
1: that said, I've never understood why so many men insist on peeing standing up, when it's cleaner, more comfortable and doesn't cost more time to sit down. It *does* take more time. If I can just hang "mini me" out the front of my pants (though my zipper, in the case that I'm at work and in work clothing), or pull down the top of my shorts (in case I'm pretty much anywhere else), why would I want to pull everything down, sit down for the few seconds it takes, stand back up, pull up my pants, tuck in my shirts (in the case that I'm at work), etc?
It's just easier and quicker to aim properly.
'course, you being female, I should have expected you not to understand.
To speak on sitting down being "cleaner". I never have a problem with a messy toilet/floor. I hate it when I got into the bathroom at work, walk up to the urinal, and have to step around those lazy asses pee dribbles. It's like they can't be bothered to hang their junk two more inches closer to the bowl. I know if I can do it, they ought to be able to. At home, I aim at the bowl, not the seat, so I don't have problems there either. I don't know what it is with some guys. Sometimes I think they should be *required* to just go outside.
bork bork bork!
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...