NASA astronaut reveals the lows of space travel: Packing poop with her hand
JUST in case you watched those videos of giant rockets landing in tandem or of Elon Musk’s car gliding through orbit and fell under the delusion that modern space flight is glamorous, please listen to NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s story about how she regularly packed poo with her hand.
Actually, not yet; that might be too much too soon.
Let’s start with the basics of the International Space Station’s toilet.
Said toilet was installed on the American side of the ISS in 2008. A curtain was added shortly afterwards. Then it flooded.
Fortunately, there’s a second toilet on the Russian side, though it sometimes breaks, too, leaving the astronauts to go inside their shuttles or, as a last resort, to use what is euphemistically called an “Apollo bag.”
We’re just saying: it could be much worse.
You’ll notice that someone has decorated the cubicle with a cartoon of an astronaut and an outhouse. It’s probably important to keep your sense of humour when using this toilet.
Someone has also posted handwritten notes around the stall, because carefully following instructions will be very important, too. The best part of the toilet, or the least-terrible part of it, is the peeing apparatus. It’s just a funnel, a hose and a vacuum, but it’s relatively easy to use, and the pee goes into a stateof-the-art recycling system that turns it back into water.
That’s kind of cool. The worst part is pooping.