“Gravity-Defying Dilemmas: The Ingenious Solutions Astronauts Use to Conquer the Ultimate Space Challenge!”
Alan Shepard’s embarrassing experience as an incontinent ballistic missile prompted NASA to pursue a practical UCD design in time for the next Mercury mission – the July 21, 1961 Mercury-Redstone 4 flight of astronaut Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom. A popular legend holds that Dolores B. “Dee” O’Hara, nurse to the Mercury Seven astronauts, cobbled together the first UCD on the eve of Grissom’s flight using a condom and a woman’s girdle. In reality, Grissom wore two pairs of rubber incontinence pants such that the urine would collect between the two layers. He was also denied his morning coffee – a known diuretic. In the event, Grissom never ended up needing to relieve himself, which is perhaps unsurprising given the sphincter-tightening turn his mission took shortly after splashdown – and for more on how America’s second astronaut was nearly lost at sea, please check out our previous video Forgotten History: NASA and the Sinking Spacecraft.
Meanwhile, NASA assigned James McBarron to oversee efforts at B.F. Goodrich – the company that produced the Mercury astronauts’ Navy Mk.IV spacesuits – to develop a standardized UCD for subsequent spaceflights. The company was unable to produce a satisfactorily leak-proof system, leading McBarron, along with Al Rochford and Joe Schmitt of NASA’s Manned Spaceflight Center Suit Laboratory, to tackle the problem themselves. McBarron purchased condoms from various commercial manufacturers and tested them for fit and durability until he found the ideal brand, then worked with that manufacturer to develop the finalized urine-collection sleeve. The final UCD consisted of an elasticized belt worn beneath the astronaut’s spacesuit, to which was attached the latex sleeve, a short rubber hose, a one way valve to prevent flow reversal, a clamp to seal off the system after splashdown, and a flat polyethylene collection bag. The whole assembly was held in place by a set of tight-fitting undergarment.
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