[FPSPACE] MSNBC (Oberg): Space station struggles with balky toilet

[LARRY KLAES]

I am waiting for another reporter to find out how much the ISS toilet cost
and then make some comment about how NASA spends so many millions of
taxpayers' money on a space commode that doesn't work.

Larry


>From: "Jim Oberg" <jeoberg at comcast.net>
>To: <fpspace at friends-partners.org>
>Subject: [FPSPACE] MSNBC (Oberg): Space station struggles with balky toilet
>Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 12:23:52 -0500
>
>MSNBC (Oberg): Space station struggles with balky toilet
>
>It's no joke: Astronauts have to make do until fix is found
>
>http://www.msnbc.msn.com:80/id/24841375/
>
>photo - NASA -- The international space station's toilet relies on vacuum 
>equipment and air flow to carry waste away in zero-G. That equipment isn't 
>providing enough suction on a regular basis, NASA says.
>
>By James Oberg, NBC News space analyst // Special to MSNBC
>
>May 27, 2008
>
>    HOUSTON - Just days before the planned delivery of the international 
>space station's largest laboratory, its crew is facing a much more 
>down-to-Earth problem: a stopped-up toilet.
>
>    This is no laughing matter. The outpost's long-term hygiene and routine 
>comfort are now threatened, unless critical spare parts can be identified, 
>found and loaded aboard the space shuttle Discovery as it sits on the 
>launch pad in Florida.
>
>    Long a subject of bathroom humor, these high-tech commodes must use 
>fan-driven air flow instead of gravity to transport human waste away from a 
>crew member's body and into a sanitary receptacle. Early spaceflights 
>didn't even have this method, but relied on bags with sticky openings - and 
>an emergency supply of such bags is indeed aboard the space station.
>
>    The current round of trouble started last Wednesday in the 
>Russian-built Zvezda service module, the station's main living room, as 
>noted in a NASA status report: "While using the toilet system in the 
>Service Module, the crew heard a loud noise and the fan stopped working.  
>After some troubleshooting the crew reported that the air/water separator 
>was not working."
>
>    Cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, assisted by NASA astronaut 
>Garrett Reismann, tackled the problem immediately. They replaced the 
>separator with a spare unit, but told controllers that the toilet didn't 
>provide suction. Then they replaced the toilet's filter, which proved to be 
>just a fleeting fix.
>
>    Mission Control in Moscow told the crew to turn off the toilet and use 
>the unit inside their Soyuz transport ship. Designed only to support free 
>flight between Earth and space and back, that unit has only enough storage 
>capacity for a few days of crew use.
>
>    Over the next few days, the toilet was reported "fixed," and NASA's 
>daily reports contained messages of "routine maintenance" on the unit. But 
>rumors circulated within the space community that the fixes kept breaking.
>
>    On Tuesday, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly confirmed that the toilet was 
>still balky.
>
>    "Over the weekend the crew experienced more trouble with space station 
>toilet," he told reporters. "They had thought they had corrected it but the 
>same fault returned, and they fixed it again."
>
>    The toilet didn't stay fixed for long. "It failed again this morning," 
>he concluded.
>
>    Byerly did not address other reports, passed along privately to 
>msnbc.com, that a "fabrication flaw" has been discovered in the toilet's 
>compressor units. One source in Houston said that the hardware used there 
>for crew training may be flown to Florida for launch aboard Discovery, even 
>though it too is expected to fail quickly. The source was not authorized to 
>discuss the situation publicly, and thus spoke on condition of anonymity.
>
>    A major new unit, intended to allow the expansion of crew size from 
>three to six members, is being prepared for launch late this year. Until 
>then, the current hardware - and the supply of "Apollo bags" for fecal 
>collection - may have to suffice. And if previous experience is any guide, 
>the Russian engineers and cosmonauts will find McGyver-type solutions to 
>make it work.
>
>    Over the years, the station's Russian-made life support hardware (such 
>as oxygen generators and carbon dioxide scrubbers) has limped along, 
>occasionally breaking down and then being fixed or replaced with spares. 
>Designed to be robust, and to be easily serviced in orbit, this hardware 
>approach has shown resilience and "repairability." That may be just the 
>approach required for the life support systems to be used on years-long 
>human missions to other planets.


>_______________________________________________
>FPSPACE mailing list
>FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
>http://www.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo/fpspace