A DAY IN SPACE…

17 Aug A DAY IN SPACE…

Ever wondered how astronauts do the number 1&2, by that i mean pee and poo. The journey to the International Space Station (ISS) takes about TWO (2) days and we also know that there is no gravity in space, so everything floats but we will soon find out if it includes their pee and poo.

The first person in space, Alan Shepard was forced to pee in his pants on the launch pad (a base from which a spacecraft or rocket is sent up into the sky), apparently they had no proper planning or plans for a toilet on the spaceship. All they had their mind on was that he was going to spend fifteen (15) minutes in space and come back to earth. After this experience coming up with a proper toilet solution wasn’t an easy task. A few of the makeshift tools used were roll-on cuffs, pee bags, diapers, disposable absorption containment trunk e.t.c.

Now to the crux of the matter, How do they poop and pee in space? Toilets, but not like the 12 inches sized toilets we use

The Waste Collection System(WCS- that’s what it is called) in the space shuttle consists of a toilet, which has footrests, a lever for flushing, and a seat belt or hip holds like you’d find on a roller coaster to ensure that astronauts remain seated and don’t float away while they’re doing their business. Astronauts climb down onto the seat, which has a hole about four inches wide—much smaller than the toilets that we’re used to. They then use a vacuum-cleaner-like machine to suck up the wastes. The wastes are then vacuum-dried. Before astronauts get on space they undergo training on how to use this toilet because they have to aim correctly or else poops might just be floating around.

Now to the most exciting part, the Number 1. We made a fact tweet here on urine being largely composed of water, this is a valuable resource in space.

Astronauts drink their pee. Well not in the actual sense of speaking. They recycle their pee which then becomes drinkable water. They are able to recycle 6,000 liters of extra water for the space station according to Astronaut Chris Hadfield. 

Astronauts first began recycling urine in 2009, with a machine called the Urine Processor Assembly, but that only reclaimed about 75 percent of water from urine. The new method — a chemical solution called Alternate Urine Pretreatment (AUP) — has the potential to reclaim up to 90 percent. For nasa the goal is not to take large amounts of water from earth to space but to be able to take the cycle itself to space.

So I ask, if you had to spend a day in space will you drink your pee or…?