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"Astronauts are all, suspended in the air. ”
"It's like I'm going to tear down the space station as soon as I pee my pants. ”
"Will your poop be sucked up by the gravitational pull of the space station?"
These are the questions that astronauts are asked every day, because for many people, astronauts going to the toilet in space is a very mysterious thing, they are curious, but they are afraid to ask the people around them.
To address this, NASA will send a brand new $23 million space toilet to the International Space Station next week to improve the toilet experience for astronauts and prepare for future plans to land on the moon and fly to Mars.
The new space toilet is said to be designed to reduce odors, save water, and have a better ventilation system to prevent poop and urine from flying into the air, but how is this new space toilet designed?
1. From diapers to diapers.
Every need of astronauts is carefully designed, and they have many "non-mainstream" needs in space, such as eating, exercising, going to the toilet, etc., and these needs seem to be ordinary, but in reality they are all difficult in the space environment.
So to solve these problems, NASA has to do a lot of testing and design work every time it launches a spacecraft and astronauts into space to ensure that astronauts can survive in space.
However, despite this, the problem of toileting astronauts has always been a big problem, and going to the toilet may seem like a simple process, but there are many problems in space.
In the history of NASA, in order to solve the problem of astronauts going to the toilet, they invented polymer absorbent diapers and considered urine and stool collectors in the Apollo 10 mission.
When the astronauts landed on the moon for the first time, the space toilet they used was a vacuum-type collection device, which created a vacuum environment by expelling air outwards to suck away the astronauts' excrement, but this space toilet had a big drawback, that is, once blocked, the astronauts' feces and urine would fly.
Therefore, in order to avoid this situation, NASA later changed the space toilet to a vacuum drying design, which seems complicated, but in fact the principle is very simple, that is, by sucking the excrement and air together, and then separating the excrement from the air, and then drying the excrement, and storing the dried excrement for treatment after returning to Earth.
In 1973, NASA launched the first space station in orbit, Skylab, and then in 1979, the more advanced space station, Mir, both of which were equipped with space toilets, but these space toilets were not vacuum-dried, but a very simple design, just a plastic bag, in which astronauts had to go to the toilet, and then tie the plastic bag tightly and put it in a sealed container to wait for the return to Earth for processing.
However, this design also has a big flaw, that is, it is difficult for astronauts to do not stain the surroundings in the process of going to the toilet, easy to pollute the air, and at the same time collect feces and urine clean and tidy, so NASA developed a vacuum drying space toilet in the nineties of the last century, and installed this space toilet on the International Space Station.
2. Why is space toilet design so important?
In the space environment, astronauts have to face factors such as gravity, air pressure, and fluttering in the process of going to the toilet, so they must not only prevent feces and urine from flying into the air when going to the toilet, but also prevent feces from being suspended and sticking to the buttocks, so the design of space toilets has become crucial.
A proper space toilet can not only make it more convenient and quick for astronauts to go to the toilet, but also allow them to maintain a very good living state, so as to better conduct scientific experiments and research, and at the same time make their psychological state more stable, so that they can better complete the mission.
Therefore, before the 70s of the last century, NASA engineers have been working on the design of space toilets, but due to the technical conditions and financial constraints at that time, the designed space toilets have very obvious defects.
These defects not only affected the astronauts' toilet experience, but also posed a serious threat to their health, so in the 80s of the last century, NASA engineers developed a new space toilet design, which upgraded the space toilet to have a vacuum drying function.
This new type of space toilet was used on the ISS and was widely recognized, but despite this, it still had a big flaw, that is, the design of the exhaust system was not perfect, and it often became clogged.
Because this space toilet is designed to save space, it is very small when designed, but this leads to the design of the exhaust system is very difficult, so on the International Space Station, there is often a space toilet with poor ventilation, and astronauts will fly into the air with feces and urine when they go to the toilet.
In order to solve this problem, NASA engineers continue to make improvements, but for various reasons, the process is very difficult, until recent years, the space toilet exhaust system has gradually become more perfect, but in the process, the space toilet on the International Space Station often fails.
Sometimes it's the space toilet leaking, causing the astronauts' feces and urine to splash everywhere, and sometimes it's the space toilet's indicator light that fails, so the astronauts can't judge whether the space toilet can be used, so in this case, NASA has to let the astronauts go back to the era of diapers that used towels to collect liquids, and only now that NASA has developed a new space toilet to replace the original design, this new space toilet is named UWMS, costing $23 million.
This new space toilet was designed by NASA specifically for female astronauts, so it is very small in size and weight, while also having better handling efficiency, usability and stability.
The new space toilet has a more efficient exhaust system than the previous one, preventing stool and urine splashes, and it also has a new cleaning system that allows astronauts to go to the toilet without smelling, and using this new space toilet requires very little water, and finally the astronauts only need to put the excrement in a bag, which is then sealed and waited for it to be disposed of when it returns to Earth.
III. Conclusion.
The space toilet may seem like a small problem, but it has a very important impact on the quality of life and productivity of astronauts, which also reflects one of the detailed challenges faced by humans in space exploration.
With the continuous advancement of science and technology, the design and function of space toilets are also constantly improving, which not only reflects the development of science and technology, but also provides valuable experience for future deep space exploration.
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While solving the toilet problem in the space environment, we also need to consider resource recovery and environmental friendliness, which are very important aspects of long-term space life and deep space exploration.
Therefore, by improving equipment such as space toilets, we can not only improve the quality of life of astronauts, but also increase the success rate and safety of space missions, laying a solid foundation for human exploration and life in space in the future.