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Main Toilet On ISS Craps Out
The Narrative Fallacy writes "NASA has spent years getting ready for a crowd in space — adding additional sleeping quarters, learning how to recycle liquid waste into drinking water, and installing a second bathroom last year. But now the main toilet has broken down on the International Space Station while a record 13 astronauts are on board. For now Mission Control has advised the astronauts to hang an 'out of service' sign on the toilet as it may take days to repair. In the meantime, Endeavour's seven astronauts will be restricted to the shuttle bathroom. Last year a Russian cosmonaut complained that he was no longer allowed to use the US toilet because of billing and cost issues. Now the six space ISS residents will have to get in line to use the back-up toilet in the Russian part of the station. The pump separator on the malfunctioning toilet has apparently flooded, and ESA astronaut Frank De Winne is the guy tasked with putting his plumbing skills to work on short notice. 'We don't yet know the extent of the problem,' says flight director Brian Smith, adding that the toilet troubles were 'not going to be an issue' for now."
Well, now we know what hit Jupiter...
They can't use the shuttle toilet that much, since it has to dump waste water overboard periodically. They can't do this while docked.
I'm waiting for Hollywood to make a movie about sending Joe the Plumber into space to prevent a Russian chocolate rain of terror raining down on the United States from the ISS. Starring Bruce Willis as Joe the Plumber.
Its a good thing their airlocks are still working. The problem is finding a bush to go behind...
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Well, in the Apollo days, urine was just dumped overboard. The service module's fuel cells made more then enough water as a byproduct of electrical production. Pretty much the same setup for the shuttle; in fact, the shuttle will typically offload extra water onto the station before departing. The station uses solar panels for electricity. Good news: no need to haul up liquid hydrogen and oxygen to supply electrical power. Bad news: no more free water source, especially once we discontinue the shuttle. Orion, Soyuz, Progress, ATV, and even SpaceX's Dragon all use solar power. This means we now need reclaim as much water from urine, rather then just dumping it, hence the toilet all of the sudden becomes a much more complex piece of equipment.
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We really have to give credit to NASA and the other space agencies for making manned space flight relatively safe. Compared to the early days such as the lead up to Mercury and landing on the moon, recent space flights have been safe and thus mundane. We did lose two shuttles but averaged over the total number of flights, it's a positive trend. I guess NASA is not failing spectacularly enough for some people. Toilet failure? That's just news for nerds and only nerds.
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Don't make jokes. It's a very important scientific breakthrough for two reasons. Number one....and number two.
From tfa: The main toilet, a multi-million-dollar Russian-built unit, was flown up and installed on the US side of the space station last year.