Space is hard and living aboard the International Space Station is definitely a challenge. Staying in zero gravity, our body goes through a ton of changes.
Basic things that we do on Earth get more complex with the inclusion of zero gravity, and one of those things is going to the toilet. And astronauts aboard the ISS just survived a scary nightmare.?
Toilets aboard the ISS were not functional for a considerable amount of time, according to an update sent by Russian space agency Roscosmos. The International Space Station only has two toilets -- both Russian made. One was placed in the US section while the other was in the Russian section.
However, out of these two, one was full to the brim and was suspended from further use. This meant ISS only had one functioning toilet to get things done. But when the second one went out of function, sh*t really got serious.
This meant, astronauts would either have to be in diapers all the time or they would have to make use of the toilet on the Soyuz spaceships that were docked on to the ISS.?
However, this hell didn¡¯t last for long as Roscosmos revealed in another update that the toilet that stopped functioning just needed a separator replaced, which was fixed in some time and made the loo fully functional.
In case you were wondering how the toilets aboard the ISS function, there are two outlets for both -- number one and number two. Both these outlets have suction fans attached to them, to pull the waste and dump it straight into the waste collector, not allowing them to float inside.?
While the liquid waste is treated to be consumed again, the solid waste is shot from space into Earth¡¯s atmosphere. Here as it tries to enter the atmosphere, it disintegrates, leaving no trace whatsoever.