Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday September 24 2021, @03:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the more-than-just-a-passing-interest dept.

Elon Musk says Inspiration4 crew had 'challenges' with the toilet, promises upgrade:

SpaceX's Inspiration4 orbital mission with four non-professional astronauts was by all accounts quite a triumph for space history, space tourism and fundraising for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. However, there may have been some tense moments when it came to using the toilet on board the Crew Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted Monday night that the Inspiration4 crew had some "challenges" with the loo. He promised upgrades for future missions.

[...] SpaceX hasn't revealed much about how the toilet works, but Isaacman told Insider in July that the facilities were located near the spacecraft's large cupola window with a curtain to allow for a wee bit of privacy. He described the toilet as having "one hell of a view."

[...] Inspiration4 spent three days in orbit before returning to Earth with a splashdown on Saturday. That's three days of using the bathroom in microgravity while in very close quarters with others. Upon hearing of the mission's potty problems, bidet company Tushy said its product engineers were standing at the ready to develop the first ever space bidet, the Tushy Ass Blast 9000.


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @04:55AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @04:55AM (#1181014)

    Everything produced by the PR firm at the heart of Elon Musk's business enterprize is a self-aggrandizing plug. BORING. Show me the muff pics or it didn't happen.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @05:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @05:06AM (#1181017)

      Him and Zucker FaceFuck have their people drip-drip-drip spammy cruft hoping it will go viral and splashes memetic spermatozoa on every media surface to infect eyeballs. Mine mine mine. Like a dog humping your leg. Yes, Elon, I know you want to fuck everything. Down boy, back in the space mobile.

    • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @06:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @06:07AM (#1181032)
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @06:28AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @06:28AM (#1181037)

    Depends.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by mhajicek on Friday September 24 2021, @06:57AM

      by mhajicek (51) on Friday September 24 2021, @06:57AM (#1181043)

      Two girls one cupola...

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Opportunist on Friday September 24 2021, @06:36AM (1 child)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Friday September 24 2021, @06:36AM (#1181039)

    Hey, it's not like they had to go where no man had gone before.

    But they were facing two challenges. Number one:

    And the probably bigger one, number two.

  • (Score: 1) by negrace on Friday September 24 2021, @12:23PM

    by negrace (4010) on Friday September 24 2021, @12:23PM (#1181090)

    It is gonna be a software update.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Friday September 24 2021, @12:27PM (2 children)

    by looorg (578) on Friday September 24 2021, @12:27PM (#1181091)

    So a curtain for privacy but then a big giant glass cupola for full insight from outside. Sure there might not be a lot of lookers right now but still. It seems somewhat like having a sealed bathroom but then having one giant round window to show just the toilet.

    Looking forward to whatever weird suction device they come up with, get a somewhat ok seal vs the human body and then just suck the shit out of you. Sounds somewhat less then pleasant. But I guess it beats having the risk of bits and pieces escaping out into the micro-gravity.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @12:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @12:47PM (#1181096)

      No need to go to space to have nice view. For example, in Singapore airport,

      https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1ryeq4/singapore_airport_bathroom/ [reddit.com]

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday September 25 2021, @09:46AM

      by driverless (4770) on Saturday September 25 2021, @09:46AM (#1181366)

      Um, well, what we are talking about in privy terms is the latest in front wall fresh air orifices combined with a wide capacity gutter installation below.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @12:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @12:50PM (#1181100)

    The FAA needs some help with who to call an astronaut.

    Not exactly sure how this fits into their commercial space mandate, but had to fix the toilet seems a hard to argue with qualifying criteria.

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday September 25 2021, @10:39AM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday September 25 2021, @10:39AM (#1181371) Journal

    This problem is quite surprising to me. I would have expected that with decades of space experience, the question of how to design a space toilet would be a solved problem. Is this a case of not-invented-here syndrome, or are there good reasons why they couldn't use an existing and proven design for the toilets?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday September 25 2021, @01:40PM

      by looorg (578) on Saturday September 25 2021, @01:40PM (#1181388)

      Could be. Perhaps it's also a cost issue? Last price I found was that one space toilet ala NASA/ISS went for $23 million. A trivial sum probably for space exploration stuff or in the greater picture of things but still outrageous in and by itself.
      Perhaps Elon thought he was better and could do one cheaper. Still one guess the market for them is quite small so it would be hard to recoup the money invested. After all the Russians and Chinese probably build their own to. So the market is then probably saturated already.

      https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-astronaut-shows-off-new-23-million-space-toilet-that-just-landed-on-iss/ [cnet.com]
       

(1)