Astronauts: Pooping in Apollo Bags is so Bad We’d Rather Land Early

What ’s worse than a humiliated distance - toilet ? A broken distance - toilet when it ’s your very first shift as boss , and suddenly you have to work on the logistics of either produce it fixed or bring your astronauts in Africa . This is Flight Director Rob Kelso ’s first - hand account of the narrowly - averted shitstorm .

Interesting … .I was the on - chemise Flight Director in the Mission Control Center at the meter . This result find on my very first switching as a Flight Director . For newfangled Flight Directors , your first shift is a Planning Shift … purportedly an wanton switch with just re - planning responsibilities for the trajectory and no material - time execution responsibleness .

The tipsy bankruptcy materialise about 10 - moment into my first - ever shift … at the source of the sleep period after Flight Day 1 .

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I will never forget … .I happen to be looking at the FAULT BOARD on the far left-hand Idaphor 10 ’ x 10 ’ sieve in the MOCR . All of a sudden I saw “ HI O2 FLOW ” and “ HI N2 FLOW ” , plus , “ DP / DT ” alarum . These were because of the sudden depress when the potty logic gate value was receptive with the over - table vent value also exposed due to the mechanical gene linkage unsuccessful person prevent the bleed / venthole valve from closing . Hence the cabin regulators for O2 and N2 opened fully to keep up with the air loss through the cabin .

[ I]f the pace had not stopped , my Flight Dynamics Officer ( FDO ) told me we would soon have to start reentry preparations for a landing in Africa … since we were off - ambit to land back in the continental US ( CONUS ) .

Our team work all night on the taken with problem … place the linkage failure as the potential grounds . As soon as we saw first activity in the cabin near the end of the sleep stop , we immediately called the gang to NOT habituate the potty until we devote them new procedure . We fear someone might REALLY get wound .

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The Flight Rule was an interesting on as I brief the Mission Management Team the next dawn : the rule said that we would land as soon as reasonably potential rather of using the Apollo chamberpot bags . This had been a flight principle demanded by the Flight Crew office . Based on experience in the Apollo program , the crew did not wish the Apollo bags and would rather land .

During STS-33 , that flight rule was changed during that MMT coming together and we continue to fly to nominal end - of - mission .

WHAT A WAY TO START YOUR FLIGHT DIRECTOR CAREER !

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Apollo - style fecal collection ? Do it in a bag , use a finger to get everything light , chase escapees , and mush in some disinfectant . epitome credit : NASA

What made the bag so horrifying ? Technically , they were just fine as a waste management arrangement . The job was that cosmonaut , like most of us , find out the ick - factor of handle their own urine and faecal matter to be beyond disgusting . NASA ’s historical rating of the bags explains :

The main trouble with both the urine and faecal collection system was the fact that these required more manipulation than crewmen were used to in the Earth environment and were , as a consequence , found to be exceptionable . The pee receptacle assembly represent an endeavor to preclude crew handling of urine specimen but , because piddle fall were frequent , the objective of “ sanitizing ” the process was thwarted . The fecal collection system presented am even more loathly solidifying of problems . The collecting process required a great dead of acquisition to forestall escape of feces from the collection traveling bag and consequent soiling of the gang , their clothing , or cabin surfaces . The faecal collection process was , moreover , super time consuming because of the tier of difficultness take with use of the system . An Apollo 7 astronaut estimated the sentence required to right execute the process at 45 minutes . Good positioning of fecal bag was difficult to fall upon ; this was further complicated by the fact that the tizzy at the back of the constant habiliment garment create an opening that was too small for easy placement of the bags .

Photo: Jae C. Hong

Astronauts were n’t even done once the dissipation was safely sealed in the bag . The next step was to hang out kneading their bags of waste to scatter antimicrobial , taking the indignity of pooping into a bag to whole new spirit level of revenue . As a bonus bit of truly foul , the original missions did n’t apportion enough space to waste collection storage , so even when they did safely coral everything into a suitcase , they did n’t necessarily have anywhere to store their literal Irish bull .

Drifting space - turds is so much worse than “ He who smelt it , dealt it . ” Image credit : NASA

wholly , going to the bathroom with Apollo dish was a challenging endeavour that not - infrequently resulted in floating faecal matter . legion declassified transcriptsrefer to them , most amusingly with the “ It ai n’t mine ! ” raillery of Apollo 10 . Here ’s astronauts Tom Stafford , Gene Cernan , and John Young trying to duck responsibility for their “ Thou who missed the bag go after the turd ” agreement :

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Stafford : “ Oh — Who did it?”Young and Cernan : “ Who did what?”Cernan : “ Where did that come from?”Stafford : “ Get me a diaper quick . There ’s a turd floating through the gentle wind . ”Young : “ I did n’t do it . It ai n’t one of mine . ”Cernan : “ I do n’t conceive it ’s one of mine . ”Stafford : “ Mine was a little more gummy than that . befuddle that aside . ”Young : “ God Almighty”(laughter )

The triad sum up not long after :

Cernan : “ Here ’s another blamed shit . What ’s the matter with you guys ? Here , give me a — ” ( laugh from Young and Stafford)Stafford : “ It was just floating around?”Cernan : “ Yes . ”Stafford ( express joy ): “ Mine was stickier than that . ”Young : “ Mine was too . It strike that bag — ” Cernan : “ I do n’t know whose that is . I can neither arrogate it nor disclaim it ( laughter).”Young : “ What the hell is going on here ? ”

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