Space Toilet Trouble; Security Apocalypse 'Q-Day' Approaches
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Taste the forbidden fruit of knowledge. The Last Show with David Cooper.
Breaking news from the Artemis II spacecraft. Moonbound after six harrowing hours when it was touch and go, we are proud to announce here with Carmi Levy on It's Time for Technology Time that the toilet is now working. It sounds silly, but a spaceship without a toilet is a real problem, Carmi. You know, we can make all the crappy jokes we want, but the reality is you got four people in a vehicle the size of a minivan uh and eventually they're gonna have to go pick a number and if that thing doesn't work uh it's gonna lead to a real bad time for everyone else and as they got into orbit you know the first order of business was okay let's let's make sure that everything is working that it's that it's supposed to like because there's a pretty shaky ride up into orbit a lot of rocking and rolling
So they check out all their systems and the toilet is one of those critical, you know, biological systems, biological support systems that needs to work.
What toilet problem did the Artemis II spacecraft face?
And the fan on it wasn't working properly. And as it turned out, you could do a number two, but not a number one. And so... They started troubleshooting it on the ground, and they were calling up instructions to the mission specialist, Christina Koch, and she was essentially being like a plumber. She was removing parts, adding parts, reconfiguring, whatever. And then just before bed, she asked, okay, so where are we at on the problem? And they said that overnight they could use it as much as they wished. And so it looks like problem solved, disaster averted. Jared Isaacman, who's the NASA administrator, when he flew into space for the first time, his capsule, he was on a Crew Dragon, that also had a pretty lousy toilet.
And they had problems for the entire four days they were in orbit. So this is a common problem. We've had it on ISS. We've had it on shuttle. They've had it on Soyuz.
How did they troubleshoot the toilet issue in space?
Now they've had it on Orion. And thankfully, you know, no longer a crappy situation. I once interviewed astronaut, beloved astronaut, Chris Hadfield. And I asked him what his greatest achievement was. And he was talking about repairing some toilet and working with the Russians on the ISS. And, you know, like being the liaison between the Americans and the Russians and going back and forth and helping with the toilet. And at the end of the day, it was fixed. At the original Apollo missions, they just used plastic bags taped to their rear ends. So this is a real tech upgrade. We can't go back to plastic bags. Nobody wants that. No, no, especially because now they're co-ed crews. And so what, are you going to tell women that that's the way they need to go in space?
No, we have the technology now. We should be able to apply it. And thankfully, it's working now, which I find it interesting, though. After they fixed the toilet, they had been using those bags, right? And so they were peeing into these bags. They're called CCUs. I love that we get to talk about this because it's actual news. And the astronauts asked, so now that we have these extra CCUs that are filled, because we didn't plan on it, they're called collapsible contingency urinals, they were going to dump them overboard to kind of clear the space. And mission control said, no, don't do it. Because it could affect the trajectory of the capsule. So the GNC, Guidance, Navigation, and Control, basically they said if you dump it overboard, it will give like a little bit of a thrust that could throw the... Trajectory slightly off, yeah.
Just a little bit. So they have to do some calculations before they okay the P-dump. So we're still waiting to hear from Mission Control, but... I love space. Yeah, there are some engineers now somewhere calculating the thrust potential of a small amount of pee being dumped overboard. It's a thing, people. This is important scientific news that people need to know about. We were talking about Artemis before the break, but is there anything you're particularly excited about with this launch? Yeah, I mean, you know, this is, we're going to see the far, human eyes are going to set eyes on the far side of the moon, that particular part of it, for the first time ever.
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