The history of the smelliest part of the space race: the disposal of waste

Since its inception, the space race has not only faced great technological challenges, but also human limitations.

Rubber Rooms, the most extreme and reserved bunkers at the Kennedy Space Center
The history and interior of VAB, NASA's massive rocket assembly building

Keeping a human alive on a spaceship is probably the most important challenge in space exploration. A human needs oxygen to breathe, as well as water and food. He also needs to be able to dispose of what he has previously ingested. This last problem is really serious in a spaceship, since the problem of how to manage waste is compounded by the lack of gravity, which makes the act of expelling waste from the human body not as easy as on Earth. Then there is the problem of smell: in a spaceship you cannot open the windows to ventilate the cabin. A foul smell in a spaceship can be a serious problem (in fact, all objects brought on board are olfactorily examined before a mission, to avoid bad smells).

In early space flights, this was not a big problem, as the journeys lasted a few hours. The challenge became considerable as the journey times became longer. On Earth, we rely on water to remove and clean up this waste, but in a zero-gravity environment, this is very complicated. Initially, astronauts incorporated evacuation systems into their own spacesuits, but these systems were used to evacuate urine and not feces, which limited journey times.

To give you an idea of ​​the importance of this challenge, NASA has invested $23 million in its latest toilet, the "Universal Waste Management System" (UWMS), which has been designed with astronauts of both sexes in mind, with a vacuum system to suck up waste and located in a cubicle that offers more privacy. As you can see above these lines, surely the UWMS would not win a contest for the most aesthetic toilet, but the important thing is that it is functional.

"The toilet system has a lower mass and volume than prior systems, is simpler to use, provides increased crew comfort and performance, and treats urine so that it can be safety processed by the spacecraft recycling systems. Future exploration vehicles being developed by NASA will have smaller habitable volumes than the ISS", NASA said.

Recently, the channel The Space Race published this video that reviews the history of this thorny challenge in the space race and what solutions there could be in the future to solve the problem of evacuating human waste in space and on other planets:

P.S.: I think I just wrote the most euphemism-laden article of all those I have published on this blog.... 😄

---

Photos: NASA.