NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
General Discussion => Q&A Section => Topic started by: sanman on 09/08/2018 06:53 am
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How do toilets on spacecraft work?
Does everyone use the same technology, or variants of the same thing?
If not, then what are the different approaches and how do they compare?
Are there any advancements or improvements on the horizon for these systems?
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How do toilets on spacecraft work?
Does everyone use the same technology, or variants of the same thing?
If not, then what are the different approaches and how do they compare?
Are there any advancements or improvements on the horizon for these systems?
A progression from 'poop in a bag'/diapers/catheters to things like the shuttle toilet, which used fans to pull any smaller particles of waste in through filters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_toilet#International_Space_Station
On the horizon, the only real advancement would be rotating spacecraft with artificial gravity.
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See Mike Mullane Riding rockets for a rather somophoric description of how NASA toilet engineers tackled the difficult issue of how women would *pee* in zero-G, notably when wearing a bulky space suit or an ascent suit during launch.
More generally, we tend to forgot how hard it was to try to imagine, design, build and TEST a zero-G toilet ( for Skylab and Shuttle, Apollo had none) on Earth 1-G gravity well.
Obviously they used the C-135 "vomit comet" but the parabolas only lasted 30 seconds. Which caused all kind of hassle.
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A progression from 'poop in a bag'/diapers/catheters to things like the shuttle toilet, which used fans to pull any smaller particles of waste in through filters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_toilet#International_Space_Station
On the horizon, the only real advancement would be rotating spacecraft with artificial gravity.
So if you had a spacecraft or space station where there were different levels of gravity depending on how far you were from the rotation hub, then would it be better to locate your space toilet where there's 1 Earth G, or could some partial fraction of G be okay?
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How do toilets on spacecraft work?
Does everyone use the same technology, or variants of the same thing?
If not, then what are the different approaches and how do they compare?
Are there any advancements or improvements on the horizon for these systems?
Obligatory Richard Garriott video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1DYJIIqyQA