During a Saturday news conference, the head of the mission management team, a NASA engineer named John Honeycutt, was asked about the public’s fascination with Orion’s toilet.
He said he understands the interest. “I think the fixation on the toilet is kind of human nature.” Honeycutt said it’s not a mission risk, but said that if the astronauts were essentially camping in space, the current setup makes the whole situation a little more difficult. “I know we’re in a good situation, but I would really like it to be in the best situation possible,” he said.
It’s worth noting that space toilets are hard. Earth has abundant water and gravity to help with the process of going to the bathroom. In space it is much more challenging. Apollo astronauts used only backpacks. The spacecraft’s toilet broke down from time to time. There are four toilets on the International Space Station, with more volume to work with and plenty of recycled water, so this is less of a problem.
Space toilets finally need to work
is not no passing craze.
One can survive by “roughing it” when using the bathroom during a trip to the Moon. Going to Mars, spending months in space, is a different thing. If the toilet breaks on the way to Mars, the chances of the crew dying are not zero. So it’s great to try these systems now on Orion. In fact the purpose of this test flight is to ensure that the life support systems work for the crew, identify problems and implement future improvements.
In the big picture, the Artemis II mission is progressing brilliantly. Debbie Korth, deputy manager of NASA’s Orion program, said Saturday that the spacecraft is “performing remarkably well” and that the vehicle’s overall performance has “pleasantly surprised” engineers working on the program.
Everything is going so well, in fact, that most of the attention is on the frozen urine. And considering all the things that can go wrong on such dangerous deep space travel, such a small problem seems like a big win.
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