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Space Station Toilets Poop Out

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the so-many-jokes dept.

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.

54 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. In Soviet Russua . . . . by Eg0Death · · Score: 5, Funny

    . . . Space Station poops on you!

    --
    Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
    1. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by Eg0Death · · Score: 4, Informative

      . . . SpellCzech says it is spelled Russua!

      --
      Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
    2. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by Yvanhoe · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    3. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by Maljin+Jolt · · Score: 3, Informative

      . . . SpellCzech says it is spelled Russua!

      Real Czechs spell it Rusko.

      --
      There you are, staring at me again.
    4. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by AioKits · · Score: 5, Funny

      My favorite line from that article was this: (enabling the boat to use its toilet at greater depth than before).

      It sounds almost heroic to use THAT toilet! Men, I'm going to drop a load at a depth in the ocean, GREATER THAN ANY MAN HAS BEFORE!

      --
      "Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
    5. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by crawling_chaos · · Score: 4, Funny

      . . . SpellCzech says it is spelled Russua! Real Czechs spell it Rusko. Usually with an expletive or three thrown in.
      --
      You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
      -- Colonel Adolphus Busch
    6. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Funny
      I don't know if they still do, but toilets on British submarines used to be accompanied by a long checklist for flushing them with the accompanying warning:

      Please follow these instructions carefully, or you will get your own back.
      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    7. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      why did you have to dump that one on us?

    8. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by AnomaliesAndrew · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "special receptacle"

      So basically they're peeing in Gatorade and Icy Tea bottles, and chucking them out the window trucker-style...!

      --
      Move all sig!
    9. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

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

      To quote Neal Stephenson: "ABANDON SHIT! ABANDON SHIT!"

    10. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Funny

      Now that's a war story... "Grandpa, what did you do in the great war?" "I was tracking down shit, sonny."

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, in the systems I know of, the waste is stored in large containers and eventually sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

      Trash is handled this way - not bodily waste.
       
       

      Simply pumping the waste out to sea made it possible to track subs based on the resulting floaters.

      There isn't going to be any floaters - pumps make very efficient grinders.
    12. Re:In Soviet Russua . . . . by iamacat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No go. Urine spray will mix with air inside the bottle as little bubbles and escape together with excess air as the bottles feels up. You are better off peeing in a balloon or at least crunching the bottle before use. The later scenario can lead to other body fluids being deposited for male crew members and female ones may need medical help to get the bottle out due to suction.

  2. No prizes for guessing .... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Funny
    ... what hit the fan. From the article:

    A NASA status report noted that last week, while using the toilet system in the Russian-built service module, âoethe crew heard a loud noise and the fan stopped working.â The solid waste collector is functioning properly, but the system for collecting liquid waste was not.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. Their mission... by Bazman · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...to boldly go where no man has gone before.

    Any jokes about the Captain's Log will be flushed out by the moderation system...

    1. Re:Their mission... by Tetsujin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Now they have to go to Uranus and wipe out the Klingons!

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
  4. time to innovate by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can't they just piss out the window ?

    $.02 says the 'special receptacle' is a Nalgene bottle

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
    1. Re:time to innovate by Ihlosi · · Score: 5, Funny
      Can't they just piss out the window ?



      Regardless of what happens to a part of the human body that is exposed to a hard vaccum (explodes spectacularly as seen in Hollywood movies vs. just becoming freeze-dried really quickly), and attempts at this are a sure way to earn a Darwin award.

    2. Re:time to innovate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Can't they just piss out the window ? Frosty Piss!
    3. Re:time to innovate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:time to innovate by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Informative

      The experiment of exposing an unpressurized hand to near vacuum for a significant time while the pilot went about his business occurred in real life on Aug. 16, 1960. Joe Kittinger, during his ascent to 102,800 ft (19.5 miles) in an open gondola, lost pressurization of his right hand. He decided to continue the mission, and the hand became painful and useless as you would expect. However, once back to lower altitudes following his record-breaking parachute jump, the hand returned to normal.
      Quoted from NASA
      There you have it, you don't explode in space. Your skin is actually very air tight. I think the worst thing that could happen is your bladder would become inverted. Think about it. Ouch!
      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    5. Re:time to innovate by kmac06 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not the same situation as holding your breath. When holding your breath, the air in your lungs starts out with a lot of oxygen, which continues to be absorbed by the lungs. In a vacuum, their is no oxygen in your lungs, so your blood loses oxygen to the vacuum as it approaches equilibrium.

    6. Re:time to innovate by duckInferno · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
  5. Something I have in common with NASA engineers... by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... I don't understand plumbing, either.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  6. well by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well that sounds pretty shitty.

    --
    This guy's the limit!
    1. Re:well by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, I expected a bunch of crappy posts about how pissed the station crew was.

  7. The good news by Megane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The good news is that we're about to send another shuttle up, maybe they can throw some parts in.

    But they only have one toilet up there? I mean, sure it's not a "Criticality One" component, but you'd think that would be a good candidate for redundancy.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    1. Re:The good news by Megane · · Score: 2, Informative

      It appears that there is some kind of toilet on the Soyuz module, though I would guess that it probably doesn't have as much capacity or functionality.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    2. Re:The good news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Unfortunately this Shuttle mission is probably the most weight limited mission of the entire program. They are putting up the big part of the Japanese lab, and it is huge! I'd have to check, but I think this is the most massive object a Space Shuttle will ever put up. Unless the toilet weighs less than 100 kg, there probably isn't room for it. They've already cut one member of the crew to save weight.

    3. Re:The good news by ultranova · · Score: 4, Informative

      But they only have one toilet up there? I mean, sure it's not a "Criticality One" component, but you'd think that would be a good candidate for redundancy.

      Actually, in a small airtight container where the air cannot be exchanged easily (if at all), waste management is Criticality One, especially since there's no gravity and the waste is gas forming and full of micro-organisms.

      Breathing powdered shit is dangerous.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    4. Re:The good news by swillden · · Score: 3, Funny

      They've already cut one member of the crew to save weight.

      How much did they cut off? And what part?

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  8. Could be worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My father could be running NASA. I'm sure they wouldn't happy to hear they'd have to hold it until they got home.

  9. Two systems? by RockMFR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 :)

    1. Re:Two systems? by rtaylor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The water is recycled.

      --
      Rod Taylor
    2. Re:Two systems? by PJ+The+Womble · · Score: 2, Funny

      The water is recycled. You're taking the piss, right?
  10. so what are they going to do? by jollyreaper · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are they going to relieve themselves in little plastic baggies? And will there be the temptation to take these baggies out on spacewalks, wait until the appropriate continent swings around and let 'em fly? Man, the pigeons will be looking up to these astronauts as gods.

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  11. Let me guess... by Chelloveck · · Score: 2, Funny

    a "special receptacle"

    Let me guess... A two-liter Mountain Dew bottle which they'll later just throw out the window, right? Because I've soooo been there, man!

    --
    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
  12. not the fix for *everything* by v1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Quite possibly NASA's first ever major problem that not even the magical duct tape could save the day.

    Now watch, we'll read tomorrow about them making a new makeshift toilet with duct tape...

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  13. "Russian Built" by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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?

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:"Russian Built" by everphilski · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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).

      All of those programs were run by a single country. ISS is the international space station. You don't know who contributed what part unless you identify it. People regularly identify Japanese, Russian and other contributions to ISS because it is appropriate, both good and bad.

      Now, the Russians have had a string of bad luck the past few months - the computers on ISS (although that might have been induced by new solar panels, who knows who is truly to blame), the explosive bolts on the Soyuz causing non-nominal landings (and now word that the Soyuz docked to ISS, the emergency lifeboat, has the same hardware) and now this. I'm sure they aren't happy about it but it happens. America has had their strings of bad luck as well. How many Redstone rockets exploded on the pad (or within inches of it on ascent) before we ever got a monkey into suborbital space, much less a human?

      Shit happens, but I think you are being overly sensitive.

    2. Re:"Russian Built" by HisMother · · Score: 2, Informative

      The smart money says the early Soviet space program involved sending large numbers of cosmonauts to near-certain death, then only reporting the successes. You really think a totalitarian regime doesn't sweep its failures under the rug?

      --
      Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
    3. Re:"Russian Built" by Thelasko · · Score: 3, Funny

      Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    4. Re:"Russian Built" by mortonda · · Score: 2, Informative

      (The Shuttle, to date, has one partial LOM incident and no LOV accidents.) What ?!?!?!?!?

      Challenger and Columbia. I think that counts as two LOV accidents. Challenger was also a LOM, and Columbia was a partial LOM.
  14. yikes... by apodyopsis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Solids" go where they're supposed to, but "liquids" don't.

    I can't help it. My first reaction (and I am sure other peoples too) was what if an astronaut gets diarrhhea or gastroenteritis? suddenly opening the window would really look like a viable escape strategy. "Apollo bags" seems like an acceptable (albeit ghastly) short term solution.

    We may be rational, sensible people but scatological subjects will always affect us badly.

  15. What I'd say to the astronauts... by Robotech_Master · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Urine trouble now!"

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
  16. Re:Special Recepticle? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually, I understand there's two astronauts and one cup.

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  17. Almost by pjt33 · · Score: 5, Funny
    That is a great line, but I feel it pales in comparison to

    [T]he commander, Schlitt, decided to use the toilet without the help of a trained specialist
    1. Re:Almost by Guerilla*+Napalm · · Score: 5, Funny

      Schlitt happens.

    2. Re:Almost by CrazedWalrus · · Score: 4, Funny

      No doubt. Even the commander can't take a Schlitt without supervision.

  18. Re:Well it could be worse... by xpuppykickerx · · Score: 2, Funny

    but you have to keep you foot on the gas(or use cruise control), a knee on the wheel and prop yourself up, so you don't pee on the seat. take that gravity!

  19. The question is... by Thelasko · · Score: 2, Funny

    how much does a licensed plumber charge for a service call to low earth orbit?

    This could blow the budget for both the Moon and Mars!

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  20. Relevant situation by dargaud · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.
    --
    Non-Linux Penguins ?
  21. Re:It's easy by damn_registrars · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's just like working with electronics, in fact.

    * make sure both surfaces are clean (use a wire brush if needed)
    * heat both surfaces to just the right temp
    * allow the solder to wick up into the gap by capillary action

    note: might be a good idea to use lead-free solder...

    Gee, if I have to do all that just to take a dump on the space station, I think I'll pass...
    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  22. Re:It's easy by zippthorne · · Score: 3, Funny

    If sex for you involves a wire brush, a propane torch, and liquid tin, you've probably got some issues that need to be addressed.

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!