"In general, the Apollo waste management system worked satisfactorily from an engineering standpoint. From the point of view of crew acceptance, however, the system must be given poor marks. The principal problem with both the urine and fecal collection systems was the fact that these required more manipulation than crewmen were used to in the Earth environment and were, as a consequence, found to be objectionable. The urine receptacle assembly represented an attempt to preclude crew handling of urine specimens but, because urine spills were frequent, the objective of “sanitizing” the process was thwarted.
The fecal collection system presented an even more distasteful set of problems. The collection process required a great deal of skill to preclude escape of feces from the collection bag and consequent soiling of the crew, their clothing, or cabin surfaces. The fecal collection process was, moreover, extremely time consuming because of the level of difficulty involved with use of the system. An Apollo 7 astronaut estimated the time required to correctly accomplish the process at 45 minutes.* Good placement of fecal bags was difficult to attain; this was further complicated by the fact that the flap at the back of the constant wear garment created an opening that was too small for easy placement of the bags.** As was noted earlier, kneading of the bags was required for dispersal of the germicide.
*Entry in the log of Apollo 7 by Astronaut Walter Cunningham.
**The configuration of the constant wear garments on later Apollo missions were modified to correct this problem."
1: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19760005603/downloads/19...
It sounds like that would have allowed them to fix the suit before they went?
They must have eaten the meals and such to be sure they could function, make sure they didn't have any intolerance, for example?
I found the language NASA and the astronauts used to communicate absolutely hilarious - "Yes, we're excited and eager to begin immediate fluid disposal!"
Glad they got it working - best of luck to Atemis II mission!
Apparently one of the down sides about the previous system was that the separation of solid and liquid excreta ideally required someone to separate their excretion of both kinds. Apparently this is something that male astronauts found much much easier than female ones. Artemis's toilet can handle both at the same time.
I still think they have the good old fashioned Maximum Absorbency Garment for space walks though. (CF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Absorbency_Garment)
this invention might be of use in livestock farming.
https://sites.google.com/site/theageofplastic3d/2001s-zero-g...
Toilets are unglamorous in the extreme but absolutely vital. Humans make hazardous and potentially deadly waste. Every day. It needs to be safely discarded/contained. In a sealed environment in microgravity it's even more dangerous than it is on Earth.
Aerosolized fecal matter can enter the lungs and cause deadly infections. Entering the digestive system can cause debilitating (possibly deadly) illness. Temporary blindness if it gets in the eyes. It can also cause mechanical or electrical problems if it gets in equipment. All of these can lead to a mission failure and in extreme instances a total loss of the crew. Apollo 8 was extremely lucky that Frank Borman's illness didn't cause more problems.
If you're not thinking logistics and infrastructure you're not really serious about an endeavor.
[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-did-van-hale...
> In a sealed environment in microgravity it's even more dangerous than it is on Earth. / Aerosolized fecal matter can enter the lungs and cause deadly infections.
Would the air filtration / recycling system minimize this risk?
A high power "eliminate aerosols" mode would be one of those infrastructure things that need to be designed (and tested). Even then a single compartment spacecraft like the Orion or Dragon wouldn't have anywhere for the crew to bivouac while some aerosol evacuation mode was active. So you'd want a whole procedure designed around it.
Part of the need for the Apollo Constant Wear Garments was to make up for the lack of faculties in the command module and LEM. Such a thing would be impractical for a long duration mission so toilets (and waste disposal in general) need to be a reliably solved problem.
> The air filtration will actually help spread aerosols because air currents will carry them through the cabin before they're captured by a filter.
The toilet facilities could have input / suction into the air filtration system. Maybe wise anyway.
> A high power "eliminate aerosols" mode would be one of those infrastructure things that need to be designed (and tested).
I expect the technology is mature in industrial settings, though of course that is much different than microgravity and the constrained resources of the spacecraft. Maybe it exists on the space station? That context still seems significantly different.
> a single compartment spacecraft like the Orion or Dragon wouldn't have anywhere for the crew to bivouac
In their spacesuits, though their exteriors may need decontamination. Maybe they just go outside, though probably not a great idea to have the entire crew outside the spacecraft simultaneously! Maybe in an emergency.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_Shuttle_toilet...
But seriously, although I guess it’s fair to say that errors will occur, still: they couldn’t get the plumbing right?
For liquid waste. This was not exactly the case for solid waste. Effectively it was just a tank. It had something like a "net" in it, this was connected to a shaft, through a gear, to another shaft at the front of the seat. The commander would, every 7 days or so, "actuate the mechanism" to rotate the net and to gather all the waste and compact it into one side of the toilet.
Many commanders said this was the most stressful part of the mission as the mechanism was somewhat delicate and could easily break. In that case you had to don a glove and manually do the work the net was otherwise doing.
If that completely failed, yes, the shuttle had backup "Apollo bags" stored in the middeck lockers.
