Another Space Toilet Episode

It’s common to hear a visitor to The Museum of Flight wonder how astronauts go to the bathroom in space. Today is the continuation of a conversation with Museum of Flight staff member Brenda Mandt, who spearheads the tours of the Museum’s NASA Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer, where she talks about modern space toilets on the Space Shuttle and on the ISS. She also talks about what did and didn’t about toilet and personal care needs when women joined the US space program. As with the previous episode (which you can listen to here), this is a frank and honest conversation about toilets and what goes in them, so listen to learn more but maybe not while you’re snacking. 

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In the episode, Brenda refers to the Mercury 13 and the WASP program. Check out a previous podcast episode about the Mercury 13 program, a shadow space-training program in the 1950s which involved getting American women to space here, and about the WASP women who flew for the military in World War II here and here. 

Walk around the Museum’s NASA Full Fuselage Trainer without leaving your home! Check out our full 3D VR scan of the trainer here. Can you find the toilet?  

Credits:

Host/Producer: Sean Mobley 

Producer: Megan Ellingwood

Webmaster: Layne Benofsky 

Social Media Specialist: Tori Hunt 

Transcript:

SEAN MOBLEY:       The Flight Deck is made possible by the generous donors supporting the Museum of Flight. You can support this podcast and the Museum of Flight’s other initiatives across the United States and the world by visiting museumofflight.org/podcast.

[Music]

SM:     Hello. And welcome to The Flight Deck, the podcast of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. I am your host, Sean Mobley. It’s time for some more toilet talk. Today’s episode is a continuation of the conversation I had with Museum of Flight staff member Brenda Mandt, one of our Space Shuttle experts here at the museum. Check out the previous episode for a bit of Space Toilet 101. Today, Brenda talks about toilets in the Space Shuttle and beyond, and how NASA worked to accommodate the biological needs of the women who joined the program as the Space Shuttle came online.

[Music]

00:01:08

BRENDA MANDT:   There’s not that big a difference between a toilet for a man and a toilet for a woman even in space. The biggest thing is that the roll-on cuff style of business is not going to be feasible for a woman because, you know, there’s nothing to roll onto. What they had was a tube that would act as the suction point. And then, each astronaut had a special cuff that was specifically designed for them. The ones that were designed for women were a bit of a different shape than the ones that were designed for men. And they were a little bit better ventilated. But ultimately, it’s the exact same system. More similar to Skylab than to the roll-on cuffs of Apollo and before. It’s a series of fans that’s making sure that this waste is going to be going in the right direction. I don’t know why they would bother to test a whole bunch of weird things. They just basically need something that’s the right shape. And there’s no reason that they shouldn’t have known that.

Ann Carl, who was a WASP actually, she was the only WASP in R&D. She was assigned to Wright Field back in the forties.

00:02:26

And she actually designed a urination tube for women to use on long-distance flights. Because during World War II, the only way that you could go to the bathroom on a fighter or bomber aircraft was through a tube that was designed for men. And so, she created an attachment for women. The WASP Program ended basically right when she finished with development. So, it never went into use. But they had that.

SM:     And for those who might not be aware, WASP is…?

BM:     Women Airforce Service Pilots. It was a group of women pilots who flew aircraft during World War II.   They are most famous for carrying out ferrying duties, but they also carried out a number of other duties. Like, they towed targets for live ammunition practice which is incredibly dangerous. Ann Carl was the only one who was in research and development. And she’s actually a test pilot.

SM:     So, what else changed between Skylab and the Space Shuttle?

BM:     So, they changed the orientation of the toilet. It had been in the wall, and then they moved it to be horizonal, the same way that a toilet on earth is. They also eliminated the seatbelt aspect. And so, it wasn’t until the second Space Shuttle mission that they had anything that would hold them down when they were going to the bathroom. They installed rotating bars that they could put over their legs to hold them in place instead of a seatbelt. They actually also installed a seatbelt on that second mission, but it was ultimately uninstalled.

00:04:15

And since they were not planning to collect samples from this toilet, they also changed the way that the solid waste collection happened in the first place. They put in a horizontal fan at the bottom of the toilet bowl which they called the slinger. And it does what it sounds like it does. The solid waste would hit this fan and be slung onto the sides of the canister. And ultimately, there were a lot of problems with this design model. The waste would build up on this fan. And so, the astronauts would have to reach into the toilet and scrape it off in order to allow for free movement of the fan. Additionally, the waste would build up on the sides of the canister until it was sufficiently thick that every time the fan spun, it would be digging into the waste and sending freeze-dried particles up and into the crew compartment area where the astronauts were living. The waste was exposed to the vacuum of space. So, it pulled out all of the air and the gases and the liquids and it basically just left it freeze dried on the sides of the cannister. It should have had all the bacteria killed biologically inert, they call it. But it was still not exactly the healthiest thing.

And so, after flying just 10 missions with this slinger toilet model, they replaced it with a vertical fan that was located towards the front of the toilet module that would create the same kind of suction, but that the waste would not really touch. And they also put in a bag liner for the solid waste which would help to keep things a little bit more sanitary. Interestingly, the toilet is the limiting factor on the length of shuttle missions. The capacity of the toilet to hold solid waste is the limiter.

00:06:28

SM:     Now, you’ve talked about solid waste. So that begs the question about, like, were they flushing their toilet paper too, or did they have another solution for that?

BM:     They were not flushing toilet paper. The only thing that went into the toilet was waste. So, toilet paper would go into what they called a wet trash compartment. The wet trash compartment is also vented into space the same way that the solid waste portion of the toilet is. And so, all of the smelly gasses are pulled out and any liquid is pulled out. And the things that are in there will end up basically freeze dried or just frozen. Except there’s no liquid component. So, they would put their toilet paper in one of these wet trash compartments. The wet trash compartments were also used for food waste. Really, anything that was expected to cause a smell if it was sitting in the trash can for more than a couple of days.

SM:     So, the Space Shuttle did a lot of servicing of the ISS. Did they use the same toilet? Or did they change it up? And since the ISS was international, who actually designed the toilet there?

BM:     There are two toilets on board the ISS. My research is focused on the evolution of the American-style space toilet. The Russians have also had space toilets going on this entire time. There’s a toilet on the Russian side of the International Space Station, which is a Russian design.

00:07:58

And then, there is a U.S.-designed toilet on the U.S. side of the Space Station. The International Space Station toilet is different than the one on board the Space Shuttle because the missions on board the International Space Station are substantially longer, and they also have different needs. The toilet on the Space Shuttle has to be cleaned whenever the astronauts come back down to earth. And so, that was part of Space Shuttle servicing that had to happen between each mission.

SM:     Awful job.

BM:     Yeah. Not great. Especially when it was the slinger module and it was actually adhering to the sides of the toilet. Additionally, onboard Space Shuttle, they have continued to jettison their liquid waste. On Space Shuttle specifically in addition to human waste is also waste water from the engines and access potable water from the fuel cells. Both the fuel cells and the engines make water as part of their chemical reactions. The water that the engines produce is not drinkable. The water that the fuel cells produce, some of it was actually routed to the kitchen in the Space Shuttle. But the fuel cells made ay more water than the astronauts could possibly drink. And so, some of it wound up in the waste water tank as well. So, that’s a pretty large tank.

Onboard the Space Station, they keep the fans in bags method. But the bag is removable from the toilet area for solid waste. And they seal up the bags. And on Space Station, they periodically get canisters and shipments of food and other necessities. And then, what they do with those cannisters is they put their solid waste and trash into these cannisters and then they shoot them back towards the earth. And the canisters are designed to burn up in atmosphere. It’s not like you’re going to get hit in the head with a piece from one of these cannisters. That’s not going to happen. They get completely burned up in atmosphere.

00:10:08

SM:     And on Space Station, I mean, it’s one of those gritty things that people don’t think about. But if you want to be an astronaut, you better be ready because there’s no one coming to clean up after you if there’s any issues or accident. You’re not calling the plumbing line, or, you know, a cleaner to come clean up after you if there’s something wrong, so.

BM:     That’s right. I don’t know terribly much about any incidents involving the toilet on the space station. But on Space Shuttle, the toilet broke several times.

SM:     Rather unfortunate.

BM:     Yes. Yes. When they had the slinger toilet installed, the toilet breaking or not functioning as it ought to was a pretty regular occurrence which is why they stopped using it after just 10 missions. Pretty much, the only time that it completely broke down was on STS-3, the third Space Shuttle mission, where the fan just completely stopped spinning. And the astronauts had to use Apollo bags. There were only two astronauts on that mission. It was considered a manned tasked flight. So, the just dealt with it. But on a later mission, STS-33, the toilet’s fan system stopped working and they actually did a contingency EVA which is an Extra Vehicular Activity that was not part of the original mission plan to fix that problem.

00:11:37

SM:     When people talk about toilets and personal care like that, often the topic of menstruation will come up as well.

BM:     Yes. There were some concerns regarding menstruation in space. When they were first looking at sending people into space, even when they were selecting the astronauts for Mercury, there were some people who thought it would be more efficient to send women into space because women are smaller and weigh less and eat less. And so, that’s how we wound up with the Mercury 13 which were 13 women who passed the exact same physical requirements as the Mercury 7, the first male astronauts.

At that time, NASA had decided they were only going to pull astronauts from military test flight programs which automatically disqualified all of these women. And there were also some sexist concerns about a woman around such heavy and complex machinery when she’s on her period which are completely unfounded.

As time went on, they realized that the digestive system and the circulatory system both work differently when you are in space. Because of the lack of gravity, astronauts wind up with an excessive amount of bloating in their upper body. They wind up really congested. They have to do a lot of cardio exercise to ensure that blood reaches their extremities which is usually helped along by gravity here on earth.

00:13:17

And so, there was some concern among the scientific community that if a woman started her period in space, instead of coming out, the blood would go up and pool in the upper part of her reproductive system which would be incredibly dangerous. Like, you would probably get, like, blood poisoning from that. It would be very bad. And so, there were some concerns around that issue. However, menstruation is ruled by hormones rather than gravity. And so, those concerns were ultimately unfounded because it doesn’t matter what gravity is telling your body to do, your hormones have more power. So, that wound up being an unfounded concern. But there was also a significant lack of knowledge on what a woman would need in space.

So, when Sally Ride launched on her mission in 1983, they created a feminine personal preference kit which is the personal items that an astronaut can bring along. And so, it includes a bunch of stuff. And they were thinking for a while that feminine personal preference kits would need to include make-up, which is not the case. And they were also extremely unsure of the amount of feminine hygiene products that she would need for a seven-day period. I don’t think she was even on her cycle at the time of launch. But they asked her if 100 tampons would be enough for seven days.

SM:     [Laughs]

00:15:07

BM:     And you are aware, it seems, that that is far, far too many. A three-month supply of tampons is about 50. So, yeah. 100 would just about do it.

SM:     I mean, technically yes is the answer. [Chuckles]

BM:     For her and the next, say, five women who go to space. [Chuckles] But today it is seen as more convenient for astronauts to be on a birth control that suppresses their cycle. Using feminine hygiene products is not particularly comfortable here on earth. And it would be even more complicated in space because of the lack of gravity.

SM:     Are there any final thoughts you have on any of these topics?

BM:     Not really. Although, I have not yet mentioned that they do actually recycle their liquid waste onboard the International Space Station. About 80 percent of the liquid waste gets recycled into potable water which the astronauts can drink. And that is another reason why it is seen as preferable for women to be on cycle suppressing hormonal birth control when they’re onboard the International Space Station because that would wind up in the liquid waste section of the toilet. And it is not possible to turn that into portable water.

SM:     Again, you don’t want to be squeamish if you’re going to be an astronaut.

BM:     [Chuckles]

SM:     Brenda, thank you so much for your time today and your expertise.

00:16:38

BM:     Thank you, Sean. It’s been a pleasure.

[Music]

SM:     Thank you for tuning into this episode of The Flight Deck, the podcast of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. Special thanks to those of you who have continued to support the museum and the podcast financially. For details on how to keep the podcast going, go to museumofflight.org/podcast and click the ‘Support the Podcast’ button.

In this episode, Brenda talked about both the WASP and the Mercury 13 programs, too often forgotten stories in aerospace history. If you’re interested in learning more about either the women who flew for the U.S. military in World War II, or the women who tested to become astronauts early on, we’ve actually done episodes of the podcast on both those topics. And I’ll put the links to those episodes in the show notes if you want to check them out.

The Museum of Flight is open again. You can find information about visiting on our website. Now, if you’re listening to this episode when it comes out, you must purchase a ticket online ahead of time so that we can stay in accordance with state guidelines for room capacities as COVID-19 is still very much with us. Details on all of that in the show notes.

00:18:04

Now, sadly, the NASA Space Shutte Full Fuselage Trainer remains closed as it’s a very tight and confined space. So, you can’t see the space toilet in its natural habitat in person, but you can see another space toilet on display in our Charles Simonyi Space Gallery. And, of course, you can also find the full 3-D scans of the interior of the Space Shuttle trainer on our website. And again, I’ll put links to that in the show notes as well.

If you like what you heard, please rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you downloaded us from. You can contact the show at podcast@museumofflight.org. And until next time, this is your host Sean Mobley saying to everyone out there on that good Earth, we’ll see you out there, folks.