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During Saturday\u2019s news conference the chair of the Mission Management Team, a NASA engineer named John Honeycutt, was asked about the public fascination with Orion\u2019s toilet.<\/p>\n
He said he understood the interest. \u201cI think the fixation on the toilet is kind of human nature,\u201d he said. Honeycutt added that it is not a mission risk, but said if the astronauts were essentially camping out in space, the current setup makes the whole situation a little more difficult. \u201cI know we\u2019re in a good state, but I would really like it to be in the best state it can be,\u201d he said. It is worth noting that space toilets are difficult. On Earth there is plenty of water and gravity to help with the process of going to the bathroom. In space it is much more challenging. The Apollo astronauts simply used bags. The toilet on the space shuttle did break from time to time. There are four toilets on the International Space Station, where there is more volume and plenty of recycled water to work with, so it is less of an issue.<\/p>\n This is not a trivial matter.<\/p>\n One can get away with \u201croughing it\u201d when using the bathroom during trips to the Moon. Going to Mars, requiring months in space, is a different matter. If the toilet breaks on the way to Mars, there is a non-zero chance the crew is dying. So it\u2019s great to try out these systems now, on Orion. This really is the purpose of this test flight, to make sure life support systems work for the crew, to identify problems, and to implement fixes in the future.<\/p>\n In the big picture, the Artemis II mission continues to go splendidly. The deputy manager of the Orion program for NASA, Debbie Korth, said Saturday that the spacecraft is performing \u201cremarkably well,\u201d and that the vehicle\u2019s overall performance has \u201cpleasantly surprised\u201d the engineers working on the program.<\/p>\n Everything is going so well, in fact, that much of the focus has been on frozen urine. And considering all of the things that could go wrong with a dangerous deep space journey like this, a wee problem like this seems like a big win.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nSpace toilets ultimately need to work<\/h2>\n