posted 05-27-2008 01:22 PM               

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.

posted 05-27-2008 07:19 PM               

Of all the technological achievements of space travel, none has captured the popular imagination as much as bathroom physics. Mike Mullane, a former astronaut and professional speaker, said questions about the operations of space toilets are the most popular questions from audiences by "more than ten to one" over such questions as "have I seen any aliens" and "did we fake the moon landing."

Mr. Mullane, who has written a ribald book, "Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut," recalled that on a shuttle mission in 1984, mission managers shut down the urine collection system out of concerns that an icicle of frozen urine at the discharge port could damage the spacecraft's delicate tiles during reentry. The crew, including astronaut Judith Resnick, had to urinate in plastic "Apollo bags" that are stored on board.

It was, he said, an annoyance, but "it's one of those camping-trip kind of things you have to adjust to." Set against the larger risks and grandeur of space travel, he said, "this is small potatoes."

posted 05-28-2008 05:50 AM               

Almost all system components have been changed out at this time, including the separator with no improvement in function. Specialists feel the problem is with the separator pump, though they have never before seen this failure signature. New procedures for temporary manual operation of the pump are in work, and the crew is using a backup system of wring collectors which are functioning nominally. Since they are a consumable, 1J is being last-minute manifested with additional wring collectors and a new ASU separator pump (KSC ground unit).

posted 05-28-2008 09:11 AM               

Chris.

posted 05-28-2008 03:13 PM               

Russian space officials are providing the pump to launch aboard Discovery on Saturday. The shuttle's seven astronauts arrived at Kennedy Space Center a few hours ahead of the start of countdown Wednesday afternoon.

At the same time, a NASA employee was en route to Florida from Russia with the 1 1/2-foot-long pump and related hardware, which was packed in a diplomatic pouch and carried onto the commercial jetliner as 35 pounds of hand luggage.

To make room for the pump inside Discovery's crammed cabin, NASA was going to pull out some wrenches, a spare part for the space station's oxygen generator, and a microbe-killing device for use in the European space lab.

"Clearly, having a working toilet is a priority for us, so some of these things that we didn't need for the next six months or so could wait," said payload manager Scott Higginbotham.

posted 05-29-2008 11:33 PM               

A technician inspects a replacement part for the Zvezda service module toilet on the International Space Station following its arrival at Kennedy Space Center.

At Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, a technician loads replacement parts for the Zvezda service module toilet on the International Space Station aboard space shuttle Discovery.

posted 10-10-2008 10:38 AM               

"The service module toilet has failed again. It failed late yesterday.

"It's similar to what occurred during the STS-124 flight to the International Space Station in June. Russian specialists are troubleshooting. The problem appears to be a separator issue, again identical or very similar at least, to that which occurred during the STS-124 shuttle flight. In the meantime, the crew has been instructed to use the toilet in the Soyuz TMA spacecraft."