Four astronauts embark on a historic journey that will take them around the moon in a spaceship the size of a large RV.
During the Artemis II mission, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, will spend 10 days in the Orion capsule after they are hopefully launched into space next week by the SLS rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
As many astronauts have discovered over the years, the question they are most often asked is, “How do astronauts use the toilet in microgravity conditions?” This applies most often to the International Space Station (ISS), where crews typically stay for about six months before returning to Earth.
But many people are also curious about how the four Artemis II astronauts will manage their basic physical needs while being further from Earth than any human has been since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
Helpfully, Jeremy Hansen has filmed a video (above) on this very topic as he prepares for the upcoming and highly anticipated mission.
First, the Canadian astronaut notices that Orion’s bathroom has a door that provides a visiting astronaut with a degree of privacy while he gets to work on what he needs to do.
“We’re very lucky… to have a toilet with a door on this tiny spaceship,” Hansen comments in the video, adding that it’s “the only place we can go during the mission where we can actually feel like we’re alone for a moment.”
And then there’s the practicalities of conducting business to ensure nothing gets into the cabin, a situation that would quickly spell disaster in such a small space.
Similar to the bathroom on the ISS, Orion’s toilet has a urine tube to remove the liquid before it floats away in weightlessness. Meanwhile, deposited feces are sucked onto the bottom of the toilet and into a bag. It is then sealed and pressed into a canister.
“During the mission we have to replace the waste container a few times and everything comes back to Earth with us,” explains Hansen. “As for the urine, it is collected and a few times a day we release it into space.”
This is different than on the ISS, where urine is treated by the station’s water recovery system and recycled into drinking water for the crew.
The crew of Artemis II is just days away from putting the Orion’s toilet through its paces and embarking on an epic journey that will take them within approximately 5,000 miles of the lunar surface. It’s best not to get stuck in the toilet!
The spacecraft’s high-tech bathroom shows that, for all the glitz and glamor of space travel, such extraordinary endeavors still come with very practical challenges.
