Space Station Toilets Poop Out

otter42 writes "The International Space Station's toilet has gone kaput. It seems that the system for separating solid and liquid waste has developed a fault. 'Solids' go where they're supposed to, but 'liquids' don't. The astronauts have bypassed the '"the troublesome hardware" for urine collection with a "special receptacle."' Something tells me they're glad the failure wasn't the other way around." Update: 05/28 21:54 GMT by T : According to a post on Engadget, the toilet's now been repaired.

Comments

Two systems?

[RockMFR]

Why is the shit separated from the piss? Is it because the piss will just fly all over the place due to the lack of gravity? If that's the case, I hope nobody has diarrhea :)

Re:In Soviet Russua . . . .

[Yvanhoe]

In Nazi Germany, however, toilet malfunctions sink U-boats : http://www.uboat.net/boats/u1206.htm

"Russian Built"

[elrous0]

Decades after the space race ended and the U.S. media and NASA still feel the need to get in any shot they can at the Russians and downplay their incredible successes. When a Mars probe fails, no one says "The American built Mars rover was lost today." No one says "The American built Columbia space shuttle blew up today." For decades growing up, all any of us heard about was the great Apollo program. No one heard about the Russian space stations, the Russian probe to Mars, etc. In fact, the first time American media reported at any length on the MIR was when it started to have problems (well after it was beyond its projected lifespan).

The U.S. media treats the Russian space program like it were some bunch of morons building substandard machinery. But who did WE rely on to take us into space when our great space shuttle was reduced to bits and pieces? Who has a MUCH lower fatality rate and a MUCH higher rocket success rate?

Re:time to innovate

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, no. You neither freeze quickly nor explode.

A human passes out in around 13 seconds when the air is drawn out of the lungs by the vacuum - and then dies in about five to ten minutes - due to - tada - lack of oxygen.

And hard vacuum is a very, very poor conductor, therefore there won't be any freezing anytime soon either. Sure, you grow cold, but that'll be over hours, not over seconds.

All of this is well documented by NASA, too.

Relevant situation

[dargaud]

In Antarctica we use a similar system, build by the European Space Agency, that recycles separately 'grey water' and 'black water' (I'll let you guess what those terms cover). At the time I was there in 2005 the station was new and the black water system wasn't operational, so we were using 'burners'... until something went wrong. There's more details on my pages but here's the main stuff:

The smoke from the incinolets is becoming worse and worse, smoking up the entire building with a pungent stink. Michel takes some pressure measurements inside the evacuation tube and determines that there must be a block of ice formed inside. When they installed the tubes on the last days of the summer campaign, they did use special insulation around them, but at the junction between the tubes there's unprotected metal exposed to the outside. We don't have the crane anymore so we have to tie up to access the top junction from the roof or from a high ladder at the bottom. In the morning the work is atrociously difficult with a strong wind and a temperature of -60ÂC, ensconced in 10 cm of clothing and sausaged up in security slings. Every 10 minutes we break down and head back inside for some warmth. The price of taking a dump ! Fortunately in the afternoon the wind has dropped to a perfect zero and it's actually quite enjoyable to do technical rope work in such a setting. Throughout the day I provide technical rope assistance to Jeff while Stéphane and Jean work from the ladder down below. They finish the work the next day by installing an extractor at the base of the tube. During the 3 days without bathroom we have to use the outside construction toilet, which is fortunately heated but it's not particularly convenient at night ! There are also some pics somewhere.

Re:time to innovate

[duckInferno]

Only water that is directly exposed to the hard vacuum of space evaporates - that is, any moisture on your skin or your tongue/mouth. it's also not the temperature that makes it evaporate - it's the low pressure. A cell's wall is enough to stop its waater content from reaching the low pressure required to cause it to evaporate.

The evaporation itself causes instantaneous heat loss, but on a very small scale (you'd experience more heat loss from momentarily brushing your arm up against a good conductor at room temperature, such as a metal railing). As the previous poster says it would take HOURS to freeze.

Interestingly enough, it's not the cold that will get you (that takes hours)... nor the vacuum's low pressure (that takes a few minutes). If you're ejected into space and you're not in the shade, you'll be blasted with a lethal dose of the sun's radiation within seconds. You will actually heat up.