Posts: 273
From:
Registered: Jul 2016

posted 05-11-2018 01:40 AM               

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While waiting for his Mercury Redstone-3 flight to begin, Alan Shepard had to urinate but apparently his suit had no provisions for allowing him to do so. So he had to relieve himself in his suit. Is it true that there were no provisions in the Mercury pressure suit to allow an astronaut to urinate?

And if Shepard's suit did not have such a feature, certainly there had to be plans to add such a feature given that longer flights were expected to happen. Does anyone have any details on why Shepard's suit did not have a means for allowing him to urinate?

Posts: 178
From: USA
Registered: Nov 2010

posted 05-11-2018 04:31 AM               

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It's true. Shepard's suit had no provisions for urine collection or removal. But it was not thought to be needed since his flight was a short suborbital mission.

The unplanned extended pre-launch timeline proved them wrong.

The first urine collection device was installed in John Glenn's Mercury suit since he had a long mission. I read somewhere that it was actually developed by NASA and not B.F. Goodrich. Apparently Goodrich was working on a system but was not having success, but I have not able to verify that.

All following Mercury suits had the urine collection system.

Posts: 2043
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 05-11-2018 04:56 AM               

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Dee O'Hara told me that following Shepard's unforeseen situation, nothing had similarly been prepared for Gus Grissom's suborbital flight, so she drove into Cocoa Beach and bought a loose fitting women's girdle and fitted it with a condom in case Gus needed to urinate.

Much more thought was given to John Glenn's physical comfort on his orbital mission.

Posts: 971
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: Apr 2015