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

In Soviet Russua . . . .

[Eg0Death]

. . . Space Station poops on you!

Re:In Soviet Russua . . . .

[Yvanhoe]

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

Re:In Soviet Russua . . . .

[AioKits]

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!

Re:In Soviet Russua . . . .

[TheRaven64]

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.

No prizes for guessing ....

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

... 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.

Their mission...

[Bazman]

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

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

Re:Their mission...

[Tetsujin]

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

time to innovate

[Gothmolly]

Can't they just piss out the window ?

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

Re:time to innovate

[Ihlosi]

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.

Re:time to innovate

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they just piss out the window ? Frosty Piss!

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.

Could be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

so what are they going to do?

[jollyreaper]

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.

Re:The good news

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Special Recepticle?

[ozmanjusri]

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

Almost

[pjt33]

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

Re:Almost

[Guerilla* Napalm]

Schlitt happens.

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.