A second toilet will definitely be something to consider for future missions. Although it might take up valuable space, it would help in situations like this. Even toilets on Earth go berserk sometimes...

Ideally you'd have 100% redundancy in every system....

Ideally...

For those who might have thought there was no redundancy in the urine collection system (neglecting for the moment even further redundancy: 1) the toilet on Soyuz, 2) the bag-like collection system, 3) just doing the 2-person manual process every few uses):

CBS News Space Place

Unfortunately, the two spares failed. That's a lot of spares, for something that can be worked around so many other ways.

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thanks for that link In other words the toilet still works, but has to be worked manually. In other words rather like a domestic toilet with a broken flush where you have to bucket water to clear it. Annoying, something to be fixed, but not earth shattering. It always amazes me how comparitively trivial problems are always magnified in the media.

Jon

In space, there are no trivial issues.

So they plugged in the Kibo module before fixing the toilet.

Talk about getting your priorities in order...

Number 1 - Science!
Number 2 - Numbers 1 and 2!

Well....if ya can't go to the loo proper, how are ya going to go to mars?
Back to the ol' drawing board.

I saw this on Yahoo Answers earilier in the week. I thought it was funny.

Q: Who is going to repair the broken ISS toilet?
A: The "Head" Astronaut/Cosmonaut.

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This is funny, $100 billion to create a toxic dump, you couldn't make this stuff up!
Can someone remind me why we're still building this thing?

Because it isn't a toxic dump, it's a scientific space station. With a loo.

Other questions?

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Why not create a modified version of what the airlines use? Those toilets have a lot of power/suction behind them. Let the vacuum of space suck the waste out a pipe in retrograde. Less cleanup and the ISS gets a kick to boot.

There's one slight difference between being sat on a jumbo jet at 40,000 ft, and being in the ISS at 1,000,000 ft.

Can you guess what it is?

I'm afraid that would leak too much air out (it would have to flush from the first second you start, erm, depositing), plus I thought they recycled the toilet water. Third, you'd risk having a lovebite on your bottom, which would be impossible to explain away to your spouse after returning to earth.

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I assume the recycled water is used for cooling. They could have designed a closed loop system for that.

Poo propulsion could be more valuable.

Remember the water rockets when you were/are kids? That was quite a kick for the amount of mass. If the average donation is one pound per day per astronaut times sever days. The waste goes into a storage tank were it emulsifies naturally. Then once a week you pressurize the tank to a couple hundred pounds and let her rip (so to speak). With a small outlet nozzle, I wonder what the thrust would be?

And exactly what science is/has been taking place? Observing the human condition after long periods in space? Did the Russians not learn anything about that with Mir?
I could think of a hell of a lot more useful things to spend $100 billion on (and lives).
Imagine that money going into R&Ding cheaper access to space, or into the moon base project - how much progress would have been already made, or how many cool probes we could have sent across the solar system. etc etc.

Yes - that's what the ISS needs, sharing its orbit with vast quantities of faeces.

Compressed air propulsion (that's all you're talking about) lacks the reliability, predicability and performance of hydrazine and other hypergolic propellants. Totally inappropriate for what you're suggesting.

It depends on the exhaust velocity. I don’t know the math behind pressure and mass , but isn’t it possible for it to deorbit in less than one revolution? If anyone here can calculate the thrust of water exiting a 1/2 inch opening under 200 psi pressure...


I would bet that it would be very reliable and predictable. I am.

You may have me on the performance side of the equation. But every little bit of thrust helps.

When a resupply vehicle like the Progress is finished at the ISS, it is destructively deorbited. The ISS crew stuffs it with assorted trash and most likely human waste and the vehicle burns up on reentry. It isn't as if they're keeping huge quantities of human waste on orbit. IIRC, the new ESA resupply vehicle will also burn up on reentry.

I doubt it, what if something (a rock of hardened feces, for instance) got caught over half of the outlet?

It could send the ISS into an out of control, fecal powered spin.

I suspect 200 psi would clear the shute much faster than it could freeze.