Weird-news: Stopped Toilet on Space Station

[arniejolt]

Houston, we have a...oh, nevermind...

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/080527/080527-nasa-toilet3.widec.jpg

HOUSTON - Just days before the planned delivery of the international space station's largest laboratory, its crew is facing a much more down-to-Earth problem: a stopped-up toilet.

This is no laughing matter. The outpost's long-term hygiene and routine comfort are now threatened, unless critical spare parts can be identified, found and loaded aboard the space shuttle Discovery as it sits on the launch pad in Florida.

Long a subject of bathroom humor, these high-tech commodes must use fan-driven air flow instead of gravity to transport human waste away from a crew member’s body and into a sanitary receptacle. Early spaceflights didn’t even have this method, but relied on bags with sticky openings — and an emergency supply of such bags is indeed aboard the space station.

Article from MSNBC but I wouldn't be surprised if you've heard of this nugget of joy from other news venues.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24841375/

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[killer_roach]

Was reading something about that, and they were saying that, until the situation is fixed, they are having to use the toilet on the Soyuz escape craft that is docked to the ISS.
Source: http://reason.com/blog/show/126712.html

[moshun]

That's gotta suck (pun not intended). :p

[topperharley]

these high-tech commodes must use fan-driven air flow instead of gravity to transport human waste away from a crew member’s body

so then those hoses with the yellow ends... :eek: I wonder if the astronauts ever use them when they feel... lonely? :p


Early spaceflights ... relied on bags with sticky openings

that's not the only thing that was sticky when the astronauts were done with them, hee hee