By Tommy Acosta —
It’s not often that poo is in the news, but these past weeks and months it seems we just can’t flush it away, with the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier being put out of commission because of toilet malfunctions, and the crew of the recently launched moonship Artemis II not able to take a decent pee because of clogged or frozen pipes in their capsule.
Imagine 3,000 people contained on one ship having to relieve themselves in toilets that don’t work. What a crappy experience it must have been—having to do their thing in buckets, then dump it overboard.
And a fire in the laundry room did not help much either.
And even if the toilets worked at a minimum capacity, imagine having to stand for hours waiting for your turn to release.
But for the four astronauts heading for the moon, what happens if they can’t go at all? Confined in a 16-foot capsule, will they be forced to hold it in for ten days? One can’t imagine the kind of damage that would cause to one’s digestive system. It would be one hell of a crappy experience.
And what happens in zero gravity if there is a spill or seepage? How does urine behave in zero gravity? Would it glob up, create little floating orbs of pee, stick itself to any surface it could find, or just bounce around the inside of the spacecraft contaminating every surface? And let’s not even consider what happens to feces if it escapes the toilet. Perish the thought.
Space toilets use vacuum suction instead of gravity to manage waste in microgravity. Astronauts secure themselves using foot restraints and handholds while airflow sucks urine and feces away from the body into separate storage areas in the spacecraft. And it’s been reported that the malfunctioning toilet in the spacecraft costs anywhere between 23 and 30 million dollars. What a waste of money, for sure. Paying that much for a toilet and having it not work truly stinks.
It’s not like they could go in a plastic baggie, open a window, and jettison the offensive matter into space to burn up upon re-entry—or fling it at the moon and contaminate it with earthly fecal matter.
But really, if they can’t get that toilet working properly, what are they going to do? Maybe stop eating or drinking anything and hold whatever is inside until their digestive systems redline?
Nor can they turn the spacecraft around and head back to Earth to find the nearest bathroom.
Did the astronauts train using it in zero gravity while in preparation for their journey? Did they try using it in the near-zero gravity achieved in airplanes when they dive and create the sensation they are floating?
Zero gravity is created on a plane by flying a specialized, steep “parabolic arc” maneuver, where the aircraft free-falls for about 20–30 seconds. Pilots climb sharply (45–47 degrees) at full thrust, then reduce power to idle and push over the top of the arc, creating about 15–30 seconds of weightlessness, in case you didn’t know. But that kind of training forces one to get it all done within half a minute. That might not be that easy.
And the problem becomes even more complex for females. It’s more complex for female crew to urinate and defecate at the same time because of the placement of the urine funnel and where they have to position themselves to defecate.
And what happens if one or more of the crew develops diarrhea? Too horrid to contemplate.
Anyway, let’s just pray for our brave sailors and astronauts that no more poo challenges beset their journey—and that they safely come home,… relieved.
