During Saturday’s news conference, the chair of the Mission Management Team, a NASA engineer named John Honeycutt, was asked about the public fascination with Orion’s toilet.
He said he understood the interest. “I think the fixation on the toilet is kind of human nature,” he said. Honeycutt added that it is not a mission risk, but said if the astronauts were essentially camping out in space, the current setup makes the whole situation a little more difficult. “I know we’re in a good state, but I would really like it to be in the best state it can be,” he said.
It is worth noting that space toilets are difficult. On Earth there is plenty of water and gravity to help with the process of going to the bathroom. In space it is much more challenging. The Apollo astronauts simply used bags. The toilet on the space shuttle did break from time to time. There are four toilets on the International Space Station, where there is more volume and plenty of recycled water to work with, so it is less of an issue.
Space toilets ultimately need to work
This is not a trivial matter.
