Slashdot Mirror
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.
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!"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!"