>>This gives regularity a bad name.

>>

Toilet breaks down on crowded International Space Station

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... v=hcmodule

By Irene Klotz

Reuters

Sunday, July 19, 2009; 2:31 PM

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station used a pair of robot arms to install a pallet of equipment on Sunday, but when break-time came they may have found long lines at the bathrooms.

With a record 13 people aboard the station, the main toilet broke down, sending astronauts scrambling to the use backup commodes on the Russian side of the station and aboard the visiting U.S. shuttle Endeavour.

"Put an 'Out-of-Service' note on the WHC (waste and hygiene compartment)," Mission Control's Hal Getselman told a crewmember after a fruitless attempt at repairs.

The commode, which is connected to the station's wastewater-recycling system, had been the crew's main bathroom. NASA was limiting shuttle toilet use because it cannot dump the wastewater overboard, as is customary during flight.

Yet another detail of living in space that I had simply never thought about.

Since you started it...how do I word this...how do they keep the, er...um..."poo" from going up instead of down?

Oh man, the more I think about the mechanics of this the worse it gets!

What if someone were to get sick and throw up or even sneeze, how would you go about cleaning it up? I'm thinkin' wet vac! EEEeeeeewwww!:D

streetglide (imported) wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:16 am Yet another detail of living in space that I had simply never thought about.

Since you started it...how do I word this...how do they keep the, er...um..."poo" from going up instead of down?

I remember reading an article in some magazine, maybe twenty years ago about the toilet on the space shuttle. Basically, a rotating impeller sucked the waste in, and "the shit hits the fan" so to speak... except it is not a fan because it is an impeller blade. Then the waste spins off, sort of like any fluid being pulled through a rotary compressor or impeller, and is forced into the ships sewar containment and holding tank. That was at least twenty years ago, they may have developed something else now.

streetglide (imported) wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:16 am Yet another detail of living in space that I had simply never thought about.

Since you started it...how do I word this...how do they keep the, er...um..."poo" from going up instead of down?

Oh man, the more I think about the mechanics of this the worse it gets!

What if someone were to get sick and throw up or even sneeze, how would you go about cleaning it up? I'm thinkin' wet vac! EEEeeeeewwww!:D

I hate to tell you but on an 8, 10, or 12 hour spacewalk they wear something like diapers and the knee pads collect water.

You know that clay "stuff" in baby diapers that absorbs water nearly to dryness? It was developed for the space program.

Imagine sitting on a shop vac's hose...LOL