“Gravity-Defying Dilemmas: The Ingenious Solutions Astronauts Use to Conquer the Ultimate Space Challenge!”
Thankfully, after consulting with Mission Control, the astronauts determined that by ripping off the front cover of the WCS and clamping a pair of vise-grip pliers to the slider valve lever, they could continue to safely use their cosmic commode – proving that Clint Eastwood was right in Gran Torino: you can fix anything with duct tape, WD-40, and vise grips. Their scatological scare averted, the crew tucked in to their Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, potatoes, and broccoli, and enjoyed a largely uneventful mission.
In the year 2000, NASA introduced a new toilet for use aboard the International Space Station, which had just begun construction two years before. Though broadly similar to the Space Shuttle WCS, the ISS toilets use not a single collection tank, but rather 20 litre or 5 gallon micro-perforated plastic bags held in an aluminium container. The microperforations allow air but not liquids or solids to flow through the plastic, allowing the toilet fan to pull waste to the bottom of the bag. Once full, the containers are sealed and, along with the rest of the space station’s trash, loaded aboard unmanned Grumman Cygnus or Russian Progress supply spacecraft to burn up in the atmosphere. So now you know: if you look up into the night sky and see a particularly bright shooting star, there’s a good chance it might be burning astronaut poop.
Yet despite numerous improvements to the design, using the ISS toilet is still far from a pleasant experience, with most astronauts listing going to the bathroom as their least favourite part of spaceflight. As veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson – who holds the NASA record for most time spent in space at 665 days – explains:
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