Crew members on the historic Artemis II deep space moon mission were relieved to learn some good news following an embarrassing malfunction with their high-tech toilet hours after the spacecraft’s launch on Wednesday.
The last time a crewed flight went to the moon, the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the astronauts had to poop into plastic bags, according to Space.com.
But advancements in space toilet technology have allowed the crew aboard Artemis II — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — to have a real, working toilet for their 10-day mission.
The toilet is “absolutely an important component” of the vessel, said Blaine Brown, Lockheed Martin’s director of Orion spacecraft mechanical systems.
In a video posted last year, Hansen said he and his colleagues were “pretty fortunate as a crew to have a toilet with a door on this tiny spacecraft.”
