How astronauts go to the bathroom in outer space

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There are many challenges involved in putting humans into space. Last but not least is understanding how they will go to the bathroom. NASA has been dealing with it, with more or less success, since the first space missions. Even before the space age, the U-2 military program faced this challenge. These long-distance reconnaissance aircraft fly at 70,000 feet (21,336 meters). This means that pilots must wear partially pressurized suits. In-flight pee was, in the early days, managed by a catheter in overalls, inserted into the penises of the then exclusively male pilots and stuffed into their bladders. The urine was siphoned from the bladder and into a pouch. It worked. But, as you can imagine, the pilots didn’t think it was the ideal solution. NASA found a better solution for space flights, but it took some time to get it right.

Dude, I have to pee

For the first American flight into space, in 1961, NASA did not have a plan to pee. They didn’t think they needed it for the fifteen-minute flight. Thanks to a number of minor issues, however, the launch was delayed. After three hours in overalls and on his back in the Freedom 7 rocket, solo crew member Alan Shepard radioed the command with a very concrete message: “Dude, I have to pee.” Shepard asked if he could temporarily take off his suit to get rid of the coffee and OJ he had eaten for breakfast. The command responded with a firm “No”. But they temporarily turned off the electrical parts of his suit so he could just pee in his pants without the risk of frying. So yeah, the first human in space went there in wet pants. A little oversight for NASA, a big pee for Alan Shepard.

On subsequent and longer space flights, NASA came up with a plan. The astronauts urinated through a complicated arrangement involving what NASA describes as “a rubber cuff attached to a flexible collection bag.” Defecation was a little more complicated. Here is NASA’s description of the Apollo mission poop procedure:

The device used was a plastic bag attached to the buttocks to catch feces. After defecation, the crew member had to seal the bag and knead it to mix a liquid bactericide with the contents to provide the desired degree of stool stabilization. Because this task was unpleasant and took an inordinate amount of time, low-residue foods and laxatives were generally used before launch. During the flight, in addition to low-residue foods, drugs were also used to reduce intestinal motility.

Bags of poop

These days, for spacewalks astronauts wear what is essentially a high-tech diaper called maximum absorbency garment. It is much simpler and does not involve kneading stool or taking drugs.

But the space shuttles and the International Space Station have room – some room – for something like an ordinary bathroom. Routine is something like this: crew members pee into what is essentially a vacuum tube that sucks up all the urine so it doesn’t float around the space station. Urine is collected, processed and recycled, or as astronaut Jessica Meir wrote in an article on the NASA website, “When it comes to our urine on [the International Space Station], today’s coffee is tomorrow’s coffee! ”

To defecate, they line a small container with a plastic bag, sit on top of the container, and drop the deposit into the bag. This device also has a vacuum that ensures that the deposit goes where it should, because if there is anything worse than drops of urine floating around the space station, they are floating assholes. The small bags of poop are then loaded onto a special cargo ship that burns out when it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. (Some containers are stored and sent back to Earth for study).

Diversity in toilet design

This system works well enough for male crew members, but is not ideal for women, who cannot so easily separate the pee process from the poop process. Again, it took some time, but NASA has finally tackled this problem as well. Last September, NASA announced it was installing a new bathroom on the space station, or as it is officially called, a universal waste management system.

The toilet part of the UWMS has been redesigned to take into account the female anatomy. The urine funnel and seat can be used at the same time. Of course, the output isn’t the only thing that can float away in a zero gravity environment. Even astronauts can do it. So the new toilets are equipped with footrests and hand holds, so astronauts can keep up with things. It is not easy to do business in space, but it is much easier than before.

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