Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/28/nasas-space-poop-challenge.html
…
2 Likes
over a continuous duration of up to 144 hours.
Must get a helluva BO stink after awhile.
2 Likes
Neal Stephenson has come at the suit-pooping problem twice in his books (because unlike SOME authors who just want to ramble on about people’s feelings, HE knows what’s IMPORTANT to a story, goddammit).
One (Anathem) had its spacefarers existing in big exo-suits with enough spare room and oxygen capacity to use the vacuum of space as a flush. (Not directly on the astronauts’ tushies, but close to it.) However, NASA might regard a few thousand orbiting space-turds as an unacceptable hazard to navigation.
The other (Seveneves) just had the person going into space take a super-constipation pill that would stop her up for the duration. Short-term use only, of course.
Sure, it all sounds impossible, but remember: science fiction pooping today, science fact pooping tomorrow.
11 Likes
Space Poo Monkey: job security
10 Likes
So… something like a milking machine, then?
4 Likes
You win.
5 Likes
Pruzy’s Pot…
2 Likes
Two words:
Super. Glue.
3 Likes
That’s not for poo. It’s another hands-free device for collecting… uh… let’s just call it “space seed.”
12 Likes
14 Likes
Two words:
Butt plug?
2 Likes
https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/CoEvolutionBook/A.BEAN.GIF
Peter Warshall: The thing that most people are really interested in, of course, is how you did it without gravity. That’s what everyone asks: “Does it just float up?”
Russell Schweickart: Yeah, well it’s kind of interesting Peter, because I just came back from a thing at Purdue University. I spent about two and a half days with a bunch of kids out there. It was a really nice program and I had four kids who were sort of my personal hosts and hostesses, and we really got into that line of material. You’re right, everybody wants to know. That’d be kind of fun sometime, to just sit down and put together a whole article on how you do it in zero-g. Satisfy everybody’s scatological curiosity.
It’s something everybody’s afraid to touch.
4 Likes
7 Likes
Not while I’m eating, please.
3 Likes
However way you do it up there, for the love of God, bring a bottle of PooPourri with you…
8 Likes
I’ve thought about this a LOT, and while any fool can design a system for urine, the other action is a real challenge. Sure, you can jam a tube up your bum (is that a serious stumbling block for straight men? I genuinely don’t know), but I think at least some of the product is going to work its way around the sides; in that kind of press-fit joint, you really want the stuff to be flowing from the inner pipe to the outer pipe, not the other way round.
But then I thought, people’s rectums prolapse all the time; could you just have your 'nauts permanently prolapsed into a special receptacle, and would that help? And then I thought maybe it’s better to just leave this to someone else.
5 Likes
A framed copy of this hangs in my guest toilet.
2 Likes
