Originally published at: An astronaut explains pooping in space, and on the Moon | Boing Boing
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That’s cool, but I personally thought the poop part was the least interesting part of that interview. Wow, talk about perseverance. I’m pretty sure if I’d already been told no twice, and then failed a third time because of my vision, I’d just say, “Whelp, I guess this wasn’t meant to be,” and move on with my life.
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What’s the diet that would produce the least poop whilst still being fully nutritious over time?
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You win again, gravity!
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There was a time in my life when no living person had walked on the Moon. I may live to see that time again.
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That was a great interview! Most astronauts are very cool!
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Massimo is def one of the coolest! i saw him at KSC in Cape Canaveral talking about stripping a bolt on the Hubble during the high risk, high orbit mission to correct the Hubble Tele. he was very personable and quite humorous! i can definitely see him fielding questions RE pooping in space.
Mary Roach devotes an entire chapter of her fabulous book Packing for Mars to this very topic. i would think it is a well covered topic of astronaut interviews, but it seems to be one that never gets old.
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I vaguely recall a part in there about the back-in-the-day pre-launch meals enjoyed by the astronauts. Steak and eggs. Why, in particular? Protein through the gut doesn’t yield **much solid waste matter, so…
** relatively speaking 
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yes! and don’t forget Gemini 7 where Frank Borman ate an egg salad sandwich where the breadcrumbs - freeze dried from the space environment and floating about in zero G - caused problems int the electrical hardware. not to mention Borman farting up the capsule to the point that Jim Lovell had his first opportunity to make the call, “Houston, we have a problem”!
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Heck, I don’t recall those!! I was much more interested in the tests for admittance into the astronaut corps, and of how (at least one?) astronaut admitted that the psych tests can be (and have been) easily gamed by simply lying. (The revelation reminded me of the same admission made by characters in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Green Mars Trilogy, something that explained the not-ready-for Mars characters).
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Soooooo…
Moonshit?
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Visited the New Mexico Air & Space Museum in the early Naughts, and met a docent there who was one of the recovery divers for NASA (and finished his career in the Neutral Buoyancy tank), and knew all the astronauts. I mentioned my uncle worked for North American and was on the design team that created the method for Apollo astronauts to poop in space (spoiler: it never worked the way they designed it to). This led to a very animated discussion about pooping in space. What I learned was only one astronaut in the history of US manned spaceflight ever returned to earth clean (he was a mission specialist, and his trick was to use a dental mirror on an extension rod to check his backside). Apparently when the last crew left Spacelab, the walls were covered in shit. There was no way to clean it, as there was a open wire barrier to prevent the insulation from being damaged, and frequently astronauts would lose a piece or two without knowing it.
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Giant shits are what you take
Pooping on the moon
I hope my butt don’t break
Pooping on the moon
We could poop forever
Pooping on the moon
We could poop together
Pooping on
Pooping on the moon
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…they should have sent a plumber
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Slow fade out then cut back to Roach’s Packing for Mars (good 'ol Mary, again) with one description of the smell of the ISS’s innards: Boy’s gym locker room. I believe the description came from a female astronaut… so I wonder how she knew of that particular aroma (filthy socks and shit-stained balls).
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I hope everyone got that one!
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Elmo Musk, on his way to Mars, just before he discovers that gravity problem.
I hear pringles cans work for pooping in…
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