Toilets In Motion — Spacecraft Toilets
Before you get all excited and start mailing me pictures...
Remember, these pages document toilets that I have seen. Yes, yes, there are lots of pictures of the toilet on board the U.S. Space Shuttle, but go ask Google to find you those pictures. Enjoy them, but don't bother sending them to me. I haven't actually gone into space.
However, I have visited museums where these things can be seen.
I once saw Jim Lovell, commander of the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, give a talk at Purdue University. Here was a guy who had flown to the Moon twice, one time on a mission that just barely made it back. What a career! But he opened his talk by saying that there was something he should get out of the way first, so people wouldn't be distracted thinking about their question and not appreciating his very interesting stories about his space missions. Yes, the most common question he gets is, "How do you go to the bathroom in space?"
Astronaut William Pogue wrote a book on the topic.
It's not just astronauts — museums also get that question.
This is the "How do they go to the bathroom in space?" display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, USA. This is the museum on the National Mall in central Washington.
At left here, and at right below, the "Human Waste Disposal Unit" from the Soviet/Russian Mir (or Мир) space station.
At right above, and at left here, the "Human Waste Disposal Unit" from the Soviet/Russian Soyuz (or Союз) spacecraft.
The Союз toilet is configured for male use.
ВХОД = inlet
ВЫХОД = outlet
The Мир toilet is configured for female use.
The Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport, 30 kilometers or more west of Washington, has a great collection if you can manage to get out there. Ask at the museum in the city — there is a bus from central Washington every hour or two, it takes about an hour to get to the Dulles Airport, and from there you can take a Virginia regional shuttle bus. A taxi would probably cost at least $60 each direction, and parking at the museum is $15 per car.
They have lots of aircraft in a large hanger, with one wing holding spacecraft including the Enterprise, the first shuttle. It never flew in space, but it did fly in some drop tests — it was dropped from its 747 carrier to test its glide and landing characteristics.
And, they have further "How do you use the toilet in space?" exhibits, in which it's shown that on earlier flights you didn't use a toilet, you used something like a diaper or just a plastic bag.
Below are pictures of the artifacts and transcriptions of the labels.
Urine Collection and Transfer Assembly
Skylab 2
This device was carried in the Skylab 3 command module in 1973. It was assigned to Alan Bean but was not used. Liquid waste (urine) was collected in such a unit, which was worn by an astronaut and had roll-on cuffs to provide personal sanitary protection. The urine was transferred through a tube to a tank, then vented into space.
Transferred from NASA Johnson Space Center
A19770900000
Fecal Collection Bag (at left)
Skylab
Porous bags like this were installed in the Skylab toilet to capture solid waste, which was then dried, stored, and returned to Earth for analysis of the astronauts' digestion and metabolism.
Transferred from NASA Johnson Space Center
A19770931000
Fecal Collection Assembly (at right)
Apollo
These two bags make up the fecal collection assembly, part of the personal hygiene system used by Apollo astronauts. These bags were not flown. This self-contained system gave the astronaut flexibility and control in a weightless environment and allowed for simple and hygienic disposal.
Transferred from NASA Johnson Space Center
A19750739000
Disposable Absorption Containment Trunk
Space Shuttle
This type of undergarment was developed for female astronauts on early Shuttle flights to wear during launch or spacewalks. Male astronauts would wear a urine collection hose and bag assembly. Now, most astronauts, male and female, choose to use ordinary, commercially available undergarments when wearing pressure suits.
Transferred from NASA Johnson Space Center
A20000679000
Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box."
In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.
| A Sani-Flush blue border indicates a toilet that I've used. |
How long have my Toilets of the World pages been around? I'm not exactly sure, although they started in the mid 1990s as a single page on a Purdue University server. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you see what that looked like as far back as January 17, 1999.
My cromwell-intl.com domain appeared in September, 2001, although the Wayback Machine didn't notice its one enormous Toilet of the World page until January 17, 2002. Some time soon after that I split it into categories, and the collection has grown ever since.
If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):
