America’s Latest And Most Advanced Space Toilet Just Faced Its First Real Crisis

As you likely know by now, humankind has sent people towards the moon again after a gap of over 50 years. And it’s exciting! I’m excited! And you know what else that means: for the first time in over 50 years, humans will be doing that most universally human of things – voiding bladders and bowels – in the vicinity of the moon. And that means a space toilet. I’ve talked about the remarkable space toilet in use on the Orion spacecraft before, but it just faced its first crisis, and while I’m happy to say it emerged victorious, it’s still a good reminder of just how complicated peeing and pooping in space really is.

The toilet, or, as NASA likes to call it, the Waste Management System (WMS), is an all-new design that is parsecs better than the old bag-stuck-to-your-ass system the Apollo missions used. The new space toilet even has its own enclosed compartment, which should make space travel vastly more appealing to that segment of the population who feels uncomfortable taking a complex, engrossing dump into a plastic bag mere feet away from two to three other people while in a room the size of a delivery van.

You can see the location of the WMS and its little compartment here in this diagram, labeled WMS:

So what went wrong, exactly? It all started when Mission Specialist Christina Koch (her middle name, by the way, is “Hammock,” which I think is pretty great) noted a fault light for the WMS at about an hour of elapsed mission time. The fault light referred to an issue with the toilet fan of the system, which is crucial for urine intake.

NASA spokesperson Gary Jordan, commenting on the mission in NASA’s live feed:

“The toilet fan is reported to be jammed. Now the ground teams are coming up with instructions on how to get into the fan and clear that area to revive the toilet for the mission.”

Without the fan working, the toilet could still be used for nice, solid stools, but not liquid wastes, which is, of course, a problem. But this is NASA, remember, so there’s always a backup.

Mission control responded to Koch on the mission broadcast that:

“…for toilet, were going to have to think about it for a while. For now there are CCUs in alpha 2.”

During 2014 – 2016, NASA pursued the updated development of compact, lightweight, collapsible, passive urine collection devices for use aboard spacecraft. New unisex device designs were sought that would allow in part for simple, clean, single- and multiple-void contributions providing local storage, accurate volumetric measures of urine contributed (in the manner of a graduated cylinder on earth), vent to space or processing equipment, and service as contingency in the event of primary toilet failure. Despite the banality of such systems on earth, the weightless environment aboard orbit or coast spacecraft poses several significant challenges that have been known to the aerospace community for ages.

Heritage systems suffer a variety of nuisances including un-optimized ergonomics, hygienics, backflows, re-use limitations, and mass penalties. In short, such a device must account for the low-g passive control of a perturbed transitional motive liquid jet breaking up into a droplet-laden two-phase flow that ingests bubbles on impact within a poorly wetted complex flexible container geometry for the contaminated surfactant-rich poorly wetting urine.”

That’s what the CCU looks like; I haven’t found a clear picture about how much these collapse, but it looks like they just get nice and flat. They have male and female adapters, and this seems like a pretty sophisticated bag to piss in.

Luckily, it doesn’t appear that the crew needed to pee in the bags, though, as the fan fault was eventually resolved, rendering the WMS fully functional once again.

It appeared that the issue was with the fan controller – presumably an electronic system that manages the fan’s operation – and while I’m not entirely clear just how it was fixed, it was, leading to Mission Control Capcom Amy Dill to tell the crew:

“Happy to report that toilet is go for use. We do recommend letting the system get to operating speed before donating fluid, and then letting it run a little bit after donation.”

Yes, donation. Donating fluid. What a great euphemism for peeing. I’m going to start using that, letting people know I’ll be making a substantial donation to the city’s hydrological infrastructure. I’m a multiple donor to the cause. I wonder if I can claim these donations on my taxes?

At least one CCU was utilized for, um, a donation, and there are plans to dump the contents of the bag outside of the ship, which will likely cause the urine to form ice crystals, creating the spectacular Constellation Urion.

Personally, I rarely defecate without simultaneously urinating, so I would be especially happy to have the WMS fixed were I on Orion. Does anyone do that? Take a totally dry dump? I should ask around.

I’m just happy the new space toilet is operating well, and I look forward to more comprehensive crew reports about the system’s performance. I hope they get to take many comfortable and inspirational dumps further from Earth than any humans have before.

Top graphic image: NASA