NASA's New Spacesuit Has a Built-In Toilet

in #nasa7 years ago

NASA engineers are working on a new spacesuit that includes a long-term waste-disposal system — effectively, a built-in toilet. Such a system hasn't been a part of NASA spacesuits since the Apollo era, and the new waste-disposal system will likely have a lot in common with those used in the 1970s.

The new suits, called the Orion Crew Survival Systems Suits (OCSSS), will be worn by astronauts on NASA's next-generation human spacecraft, Orion, which will be able to carry humans well beyond low Earth orbit. While the vehicle isn't big enough to support a nine-month trip to Mars, Orion could carry humans around the moon and back.

Like the space shuttle before it, Orion will be equipped with a toilet, but NASA is making contingency plans in case of emergencies, including the possibility that the Orion capsule depressurizes and the astronauts have to remain in their suits to survive. In fact, the agency wants astronauts to be able to survive in their suits for up to six days — meaning the men and women would have to be able to do things like eat, urinate and defecate without taking them off.

https://www.livescience.com/61808-orion-spacesuit-waste-disposal-system.html

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One has to wonder how tolerable the suits would be after six days of urinating and defecating in them. But I suppose it beats Alan Shepherd's experience as he waited to become the first American astronaut in 1961. Ah, progress.

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