SpaceX needs to tame toilet trouble before weekend launch

[TexasTowelie]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX is taming some toilet troubles in its Dragon capsules before launching four more astronauts.

The company and NASA want to make sure any toilet leaks won’t compromise the capsule launching early Sunday from Kennedy Space Center or another one that’s been parked at the International Space Station since April.

During SpaceX’s first private flight last month, a tube came unglued, spilling urine onto fans and beneath the floor, said William Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX vice president who used to work for NASA. The same problem was recently discovered inside the Dragon capsule at the space station, he told reporters Monday night.

As a permanent fix, SpaceX has welded on the urine-flushing tube that’s inside the company’s newest capsule, named Endurance by its U.S.-German crew. NASA isn’t quite finished reviewing the last-minute fix.

Read more: https://www.limaohio.com/news/482325/spacex-needs-to-tame-toilet-trouble-before-weekend-launch

[jpak]

1. It's a pissah

Yup

[LastDemocratInSC]

2. It's interesting that SpaceX won't describe the details of the toilet.

It doesn't appear in any of the drawings or photographs of the capsule interior. There's speculation that it's located somewhere behind where the commander and co-pilot are seated, in a recessed area inside the wall, but nobody will confirm that.

A lot of the equipment and technology on Dragon is proprietary and not discussed, that's understandable, but there are only a few ways for a toilet to work in micro gravity. The designs used for decades by the US and Russia are remarkably similar because form follows function. The reason for the secrecy over basic plumbing is a continuing mystery.