Space Briefs
Evolution of
the space toilet
By Kaelan Jungmeyer
When Alan Shepard first went
into space, he wet his pants.
There was no toilet and that was
his only option. Scientists put their
heads together and created the
modern diaper. Before this event,
people used cloth diapers. The
crews of the Apollo missions
were a bit luckier, with diapers,
but it still wasn’t very pleasant.
Then low and behold, the first
space station had a toilet. Not
a traditional toilet, but a toilet
all the same. When engineers
were working on the first space
station they encountered an
interesting problem. How would
a toilet work? You can’t have a
traditional toilet that drains the
bowl for obvious reasons. In zero
gravity the water would float out
of the bowl and create quite a
mess. The engineers then had an
idea. They would use suction. It
used a fan driven suction system
that transported the waste into
a separate container. All waste
that was recyclable was cleaned
and reused. When in orbit the
toilet was the first feature to be
installed. In zero gravity the bodily
system resets within two hours of
being in space, so the toilet was
mandatory. Several astronauts
mentioned how beautiful it was
to see their “waste” be jettisoned
into space, since it would freeze
instantly.
Toilet aboard Space Shuttle Challenger.
www.RocketSTEM.org
The first stage of the privately developed Antares rocket stands erect at newly constructed
Launch Pad 0-A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. The maiden Antares test launch is
scheduled for mid-April 2013.
Photo: Ken Kremer
Antares blast off set for mid April
By Ken Kremer
NASA announced that the
maiden flight of the private Antares
rocket from Orbital Sciences Corp.
is slated to soar to space between
April 17 to 19 from the newly
constructed seaside launch pad
dubbed 0-A at the Mid-Atlantic
Regional Spaceport at NASA’s
Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The two stage Antares rocket
serves as the launcher for the
unmanned commercial Cygnus
cargo resupply spacecraft, also
developed by Orbital. Both Antares
and Cygnus were constructed
under NASA’s Commercial Orbital
Transportation
Services
(COTS)
program to replace the ISS cargo
upmass
capability
previously
tasked to NASA’s now retired Space
Shuttles.
In mid- March 2013 I visited NASA
Wallops for an up close personal
tour of the impressive Antares first
stage rocket erected at the launch
complex following the successful 29
second hot fire engine test in late
February that cleared the last hurdle
to approve the Antares launch.
Umbilical lines were still connected
to the rocket.
The inaugural Antares test flight
is called the A-One Test Launch
Mission. It will validate the medium
class rocket for later follow-on flights
to the ISS. The first stage is powered
by dual liquid fueled AJ26 first stage
rocket engines that generate a
combined total thrust of some
680,000 lbs. The upper stage features
a Castor 30 solid rocket motor with
thrust vectoring. Antares can loft
payloads weighing over 5000 kg to
LEO.
Orbital won a $1.9 Billion contract
with NASA to launch at least eight
resupply missions and deliver
approximately 20,000 kilograms
of supplies and equipment to the
ISS; similar to the SpaceX Falcon 9/
Dragon system.
The April launch of Antares which
mark the most powerful rocket ever
to ascend near the major American
East Coast population centers.
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