Inside the Secret, Surprising Challenges of Astronauts’ Bathroom Breaks in Space
Dear Sir,
In our science class we were talking about the first man that would go into space and we would like to know where they go to the toilet when there [sic] up in space and there’s no gravity.
Yours truly,
Brenda Kemmerer
…Dr. Freeman H. Quimby of NASA’s Office of Life Science Programs replied that “…the first space man is not expected to have ‘to go’”. As the first spaceflights would last only 15 minutes, astronauts were simply expected to “hold it” until brought aboard the recovery ship after splashdown.
…which brings us back to the morning of May 5, 1961, and Alan Shepard’s awkward pre-flight dilemma. While NASA records indicate that a urine collection container was installed near the capsule’s entrance hatch, this would have been impossible for Shepard to use, being firmly strapped into his form-fitting flight couch. And letting Shepard out to use the regular facilities would have required the pad crew to laboriously unfasten the 70 bolts holding the hatch shut, further delaying the launch. Unable to resist the urge any longer, Shepard requested permission to urinate in his spacesuit. At first Mission Control refused, fearing that the urine would short out the biosensors monitoring Shepard’s vital signs. But when Shepard suggested they simply switch the sensors off, they relented, and a very relieved Shepard proceeded to – well, relieve – himself. Due to Shepard’s supine, legs-up position, the urine pooled in the small of his back and soaked into his one-piece wool undergarment, where the cool pure oxygen flowing through the spacesuit quickly dried it out. The crisis averted, the countdown resumed, and at 9:34 AM Shepard blasted off into the wild blue yonder, reaching an altitude of 187.5 kilometres before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean 487 kilometres east of Cape Canaveral. Though less impressive than Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s historic orbit of the earth less than a month before, the flight of Mercury Redstone 3 finally put the United States firmly in the Space Race – and for more on the – shall we say less than stellar – early days of the U.S. space program, please check out our previous video ‘Kaputnik’: America’s Largely Forgotten Disastrous First Attempt to Launch a Satellite.
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.
Another popular myth associated with the early American space program is that NASA had to change the size classifications on its UCDs in order to accommodate the astronaut’s legendary egos. This story seems to have originated with engineer Donald Retake – nicknamed “Dr. Flush” due to his extensive work on astronaut waste-collection systems – who stated in the 2008 Science Channel documentary series Moon Machines:
“Inside the urine collection assembly, which we call the pee pouch, is a one liter bag. And the attachment to the body was a condom with a hose on the end of it which allowed the urine to flow freely into the bag. The condoms initially came in three different sizes: small, medium and large. But few astronauts, whatever their real dimensions, refused to accept that they were anything but large. We changed the names to large, gigantic, and humongous.”
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