We are talking about what is not customary to speak openly, but what plays the most important role in long-term manned space flights - about ensuring human life.
It is clear that breathing is in the first place. In the USSR, they immediately followed the path of air breathing for astronauts. This, of course, made the design of spacecraft (SC) more complicated and heavier, but life has shown the correctness of the chosen solution.
The Americans used oxygen breathing at a pressure of 1/3 atmospheric pressure. For the 60s, this technology was nothing new: oxygen breathing was used by divers and pilots. But some undesirable factors came to light. For example, prolonged breathing with pure oxygen led to respiratory depression. The fact is that the respiratory center reacts to the content of carbon dioxide in the blood, which is gradually washed out in an atmosphere of pure oxygen - if there is not enough of it, then "it is not necessary" to breathe …
The issue of the stay of American astronauts in an atmosphere of pure oxygen for many days has not been resolved to this day, because experimental data are required here. In any case, after the experiment with Apollo-1, when the crew burned alive in an oxygen atmosphere, it became clear that this was a dead-end direction in astronautics. The USSR realized this a few years before the tragedy with Apollo-1, when a similar incident occurred at the Cosmonaut Training Center: on March 23, 1961, 19 days before the start of Yuri Gagarin, during an experiment with a human being in an atmosphere of pure oxygen, he was burned alive member of the first cosmonaut corps Valentin Bondarenko. Then we will return to this topic, because, according to the NASA legend, American astronauts flew into space for 15 years and breathed only oxygen.
The second most important topic is the disposal of human excreta. In everyday life, such juicy details are not discussed, but there are no trifles in space, and each requires careful analysis and technology to solve it.
So, for short-term flights, you can limit yourself to something like a diaper, but in long-term flights, there is a need for special systems for receiving small and large needs. In the USSR, in advance, even before the flight of Yuri Gagarin, a special unit was developed - a sewage and sanitary device (ACS):
At first, the design had to take into account the anthropological differences between men and women. Therefore, the ACS for the 3-day flight of Tereshkova differed from the male one, and in general, at first, the ACS were used for individual use and exactly repeated the contours of the body, for which the prints of the "fifth point" of the cosmonauts, including the aforementioned Tereshkova, were taken. Subsequently, unified automated control systems were developed:
And what about the Americans? After all, if you believe them, then Gemini 4 with two astronauts was in space for 4 days, Gemini 5 - a week, Gemini 7 - two weeks (!), Allegedly setting a record.
It can be assumed in advance that Americans, who are scrupulous in terms of everyday amenities, have thought over such an important issue. It is known that American truck tractors and trailers have always been among the world leaders in terms of equipment and comfort - they had not only toilet cubicles, but also showers, air conditioners, TVs and the like, without which the life of an ordinary American is unthinkable. Believe it or not, NASA didn't even tackle this issue in the 60s! Allow me! - the layman will tell me, - the Americans have visited the moon 6 times, having made long flights there and back, so the toilet problem has certainly been solved.
What NASA says
First of all, it would be nice to get acquainted with the device of the outstanding American lunar spacesuit, which, after the lunar missions, was immediately sent to the museum:
The video is a fragment from the BBC film "Apollo 11 A Night to Remember", filmed over 40 years ago. There is a curious moment in it: James Burke explains that urine is collected in a metal container located in the abdomen. Where he got it from - he didn’t come up with it himself! All information, like the spacesuit, was obtained from NASA. But, as we can see, in matters of life support for astronauts at NASA "the horse was not lying around" - they improvise on the go.
Referring to the NASA document - APOLLO OPERATIONS HANDBOOK. EXTRAVEHICULAR MOBILITY UNIT. The mentioned urine collector is on the right (UCTA) and resembles a thong:
This is what a urine collector looks like on a person:
Moreover, this copy is somewhat different from what is exhibited in the museum:
Exhibit of the National Museum of Aviation and Astronautics. Smithsonian Institution, USA.
The penis is inserted directly into the urine collector, but how the tightness is ensured is unknown. Obviously, the inserted penis also serves as a plug.
There are no metal urine collectors in the suit - the tube goes to the connector on the thigh:
Thus, the technology for collecting liquid waste does not look very well thought out and, obviously, suffered from the flaws that are traditional for NASA. The point is that in the missions "Mercury" and "Gemini", the removal of liquid waste from the vital activity of astronauts was certainly accompanied by leaks. So, "for the first orbital flight on" Mercury ", NASA developed a simple urine bag made of a condom, a tube and a container for urine":
John Glenn's urine collection bag. National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, USA.
For longer flights, it was upgraded to include a hand pump so that the astronaut could empty an overfilled urine bag. However, "the pump worked poorly, the hoses were leaking, urine balls were flying in the cockpit. At least some of the short circuits in the last orbits of the flight were caused by the leaking sewage system, seriously complicating the flight."
In the Gemini ships, the urine collection system has been improved in a rather curious way. The urine bag already looks like a thong, like the Apollo:
At the same time, during the emptying of the bladder, the astronaut had to reciprocate with his hand in order to activate the pump, made in the form of an accordion:
But the dreamers from NASA did not calm down on this, because in reality the procedure should have been performed together: one got rid of an excess of urine, and the second immediately pumped it, wielding an accordion. Presumably, long and persistent training was devoted to this exercise. After all, as the astronauts themselves say, "the training process at NASA is subject to the principle" so that there are no surprises. " Nevertheless, balls of "surprises" continued to haunt the crews of the Gemini, since "The system often dumped urine instead of sucking - the accordion was not a ventilator, one careless movement was enough to create excess pressure, not a vacuum." And only starting with the Gemini-5 mission, the spontaneous wandering of urine through the compartments of the ship obeyed the engineers of NASA: they began to throw it overboard into open space and admire the cloud of sparkling crystals. But the annoying surprises still did not disappear completely, "as happened to Jim Lovell during the flight on Gemini 7", whose urine bag burst. Lovell eloquently described that flight as "two weeks in a latrine."
Now about solid waste. James Burke explained that the liquid component of the feces is absorbed by a special absorbent material, hinting at the diaper that he actually put on. And then - you are adults, you yourself will guess …
NASA writes in the "Apollo Operations Handbook …": "To provide for emergency waste management, a fecal containment subsystem (FCS) is worn about the waist of the crewman next to the body for collecting and containing solid waste matter."
Translation: to manage waste in unexpected (sic!) Cases, a "faeces containment subsystem" is worn around the waist of a crew member, designed to collect and store solid waste.
As it turns out, the "faeces containment subsystem" is a conventional pantaloons with a slot for the genitals:
Therefore, it should be straightforward to say that astronauts, according to the NASA document, peeing in pants!
Examining the pantaloons: "Fecal Containment Subsystem The FCS (fig. 2-23) consists of a pair of elasticized underwear shorts with an absorbent liner material added in the buttocks area and with an opening for the genitals in the front. Foam rubber is placed around the leg opening, under the scrotal area, and at the spinal furrow. This system is worn under the CWG or LCG to permit emergency defecation during the periods when the PGA is pressurized. The FCS collects and prevents the escape of fecal matter into the pressure garment. The moisture contained in the fecal matter is absorbed by the FCS liner and is evaporated from the liner into the suit atmosphere where it is expelled through the PGA ventilation system. The system has a capacity of approximately 1000 cc of solids."
Translation: The faeces containment subsystem includes double elastic underpants with an absorbent pad in the buttock area and an anterior genital incision. Foam rubber wraps around the outside of the thighs, placed in the scrotum and dorsal groove. This system is worn under a Constant Wear Garment.:
which allows for unexpected bowel movements in the presence of pressure in the suit. The Feces Retention Subsystem collects and keeps feces from entering the suit. The moisture in the faeces is absorbed by the insert and then - WARNING! - evaporates from the liner into the atmosphere of the spacesuit, from where it is removed through its ventilation system. The system has an approximate capacity of 1000 cm³ for solid waste (emphasis mine).
What to do with feces from your pants and how to wash yourself after that? But on the technology of emptying the trousers, the imagination of NASA figures has become scarce and it has not yet been disclosed (obviously, it is kept under seven seals under the heading "secret"). Apparently, the astronauts, having removed the spacesuit from their comrade, then with improvised means - spoons, forks, napkins, etc. - scooped out the contents of the trousers and put it in a "bucket" (number 20 in the far corner - "Fecal Canister"):
Sectional diagram of the Command Module (CM).
It is, of course, very small for 3 adult men. It should be noted that the astronauts ate a variety of foods, without denying themselves anything, some even recovered. Will it be enough for a 10-12-day trip, provided that an adult excretes an average of 200g of feces per day? few. Therefore, we have every right to assume that they carried a significant amount of feces with them, embodying the ancient aphorism - omnia mea mecum porto ("I carry everything with me"). Well, since the astronauts returned to Earth in the same spacesuits, the feces collected in the "feces collection subsystem" returned with them.
In the event that the astronauts on board the ship were exposed and completely removed from their spacesuit, NASA offered them a different, but no less delightful toilet service. Since the Apollo and previous ships did not have an ACS, the astronauts, unlike their Soviet counterparts, were supplied with special packages to cope with great needs. It is very difficult to present and describe the procedure itself due to its exoticism, therefore NASA took care of educating all those interested in the details of the process, offering to admire this picture:
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin demonstrates how to use the package.
However, it should be clarified that in a real setting, pants will be redundant and interfere with the bowel movement process. In addition, in the picture, the bag is equipped with a hard plastic flange, which is not on the museum sample:
Exhibit of the National Museum of Aviation and Astronautics. Smithsonian Institution, USA.
Apparently, the sample with a flange is one of the options for an individual use package, adapted to the buttocks of a particular crew member. It is not by chance that two fingers are inserted into the bag - special fingertips are carefully provided there so as not to get dirty in the contents of the bag. The procedure itself is described in a NASA document as follows: “The handpads of the bag were used to position it on the anus. After defecation, fingertips were also used to separate the fecal mass from the anus and move it to the bottom of the bag. Then the bag was separated from the buttocks, and the anus was cleaned with napkins, which were disposed of in the bag. Then the user opened the bag with the germicidal liquid and sent it to the same bag with feces, which was then sealed. Then it was necessary to "knead" the bag so that its contents were mixed. At the end of the procedure, the bag with feces was placed inside another bag, and everything together was sent to a special compartment for storing waste "(on the CM diagram under No. 33). For some reason, the instructions omitted an important detail: the bag had to be not only positioned, but also reliably glue to the buttocks, for which its neck was supplied with adhesive tape.
Reviews of this technology have been very hard-hitting since the days of Gemini: “Astronauts rarely used feces bags and described them as“disgusting.” the bags didn’t stop the bad smell from spreading throughout the small capsule. " If the astronauts rarely used the bags, then they relieved the need in their pants, because NASA did not provide for other options. The NASA document also emphasizes that “the process of collecting faeces requires considerable skill to prevent faeces from leaking out of the bag and subsequently contaminating the crew, their clothing and cockpit. The complexity of the process of defecation also took a long time. Apollo astronauts- 7 "estimated this time at 45 minutes."
How can you imagine this? Astronauts flew in Gemini, returned, to put it mildly, dirty - something must be done! And NASA is keeping Olympic calm and doing nothing; astronauts, in turn, amuse the audience with stories about "pooping in a bag in zero gravity." So, in the book "Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void" Mary Roach gives a fragment of the recording of the conversations of the astronauts of the Apollo 10 mission:
STAFFORD: Wow, who did that?
YOUNG: What did you do?
SERNANE: What?
STAFFORD: Who did it? [laughs]
SERNAN: Where is it from?
STAFFORD: Give me a napkin. Shit flies here.
YOUNG: It's not mine.
SERNANE: Not mine, it seems.
STAFFORD: Mine was stickier than that. Throw it away and that's it.
YOUNG: Oh my God.
[Eight minutes later, discussing the timing of the drain.]
YOUNG: Did they say it can be done at any time?
SERNANE: Said at 135. They said that. Another damn turd. What's the matter with you guys? Give it to me.
YOUNG / STAFFORD: [laughs].
STAFFORD: Was it just flying around here?
SERNANE: Yes.
STAFFORD: [laughs] Mine was thinner than that.
Young: And mine. It seems to be from that bag.
SERNANE: [laughs] I don’t know whose it is, so I’m not going to blame or defend anyone. [laughs]
YOUNG: What's going on here after all?
In the same anecdotal vein, the astronauts and the press discussed the toilet problems: "According to the reports of the American periodicals of those years, there were cases when such a package came unstuck at an inopportune moment."
And just before the end of the Apollo missions, NASA released a report on the quality of crew life support systems: "Although the feces collection system in the Apollo missions was similar to that used on the Gemini ships, nevertheless, many other concepts and designs were investigated and tested. In all cases, the main goal was to avoid contamination of the crew with faeces in zero gravity conditions, but nothing more effective than the existing system, which turned out to be acceptable for all flights, was found, although the crews expressed their dislike for it. Now other methods are being studied for future missions. and experiments will be carried out. For future flights - especially long ones - a better method of collecting faeces should be developed. "In other words, astronauts on the Gemini and Apollo missions put in their pants with the tricky name" faecal retention subsystem ", since the bags were rarely used, and NASA reports that this method of "collecting feces" is effective and acceptable. To some extent, we can agree with NASA, because feces remained in the pants of astronauts, and did not scatter in the habitable space of the spacecraft, thus solving the main problem. in fact, cheap and cheerful!
NASA fecal popcorn in the post-Apollo period
As mentioned above, NASA was concerned about future long-term flights into space even at a time when the Apollo crews were in great need of trousers, and they disdained to use packages. The result of these concerns was the ACS intended for the Space Shuttle (hereinafter simply the shuttle), which first went into space on the Columbia shuttle on April 12, 1981. Thus, NASA began using ACS on spacecraft exactly 20 years after the start of manned space flights. NASA engineers tried to construct their own original design: "The first (American - auth.) Space toilets were very reminiscent of Waring's blender, spinning at a speed of 1200 rpm somewhere 15 cm below the known part of the human body. The device crushed excrement and other tissues - say, paper, not a scrotum - and threw it all into a container. The machine produced a kind of papier-mâché."
Shuttle toilet.
But instead of gratitude, the astronauts again began to complain and be capricious, because "there were problems when the container was exposed to the cold and dry vacuum of space (this was necessary to sterilize the contents of the container). Here the mass was already falling apart on" papier "and" mache. "When the next astronaut turned on the instrument, the blender blades began to grind small pieces of aspen nests of feces that remained on the walls of the container, and those already scattered around the cabin in the form of dust "(ibid.).
And again, feces fly through the spacecraft! This phenomenon even got the name "fecal popcorn", which, oddly enough, the astronauts were no longer in a joke: "The astronauts of the current shuttle expedition began to use fecal bags such as the Apollo program. During the previous flight, clouds of fecal dust generated by new toilets caused astronauts to refuse food in order to reduce the frequency of use of this facility. The fecal dust was not only disgusting, but also led to the "growth of bacteria in the mouth of E. coli", as had happened before aboard the submarine, when the room was overwhelmed by waste water vapor "(ibid.).
The last remark from the NASA report is curious: there are known cases of E. coli multiplication in the mouths of submarine crews, as well as shuttles, but the crews of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo for some reason passed, although feces flew everywhere and stained the astronauts to the greater joy of these.
On the ISS, NASA no longer began to tempt fate and entrusted the toilet service to the Russian side - all stationary toilets on the ISS are of Russian origin. Initially, the toilet was only in the Russian Zarya module, and in 2007 NASA ordered a toilet for the Tranquility module: "The US National Aerospace Agency (NASA) ordered a toilet in Russia for the American part of the ISS for $ 19 million." Thus, the history of the American ACS has exactly 30 years, darkened by fecal popcorn.
How to understand all this?
Let us summarize the revealed features related to NASA technologies that ensured the life of astronauts in space.
1. At the very beginning, the tragic cases that took place in the USSR and the USA during experiments with a person's stay in an atmosphere of pure oxygen were mentioned. In the USSR, the death of cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko was due to the fact that a cotton wool soaked in alcohol broke out, causing an instant fire in the pressure chamber. The Apollo 1 crew burned down in a similar situation, but there were no burning objects - apparently, a small spark was enough. But nothing like this happened in the missions "Mercury", "Gemini" and "Apollo", accompanied by the flights of balls of urine and feces in the oxygen atmosphere of the spacecraft, which led to short circuits, but, oddly enough, did not cause fires.
2. Flying feces in the missions listed in paragraph 1 invariably caused jokes and amusement among the crew members - these stories were relished by the press. And in the same situation, the shuttle crews were sad - they even refused to eat, so as not to deal with fecal popcorn. In contrast, the astronauts of the lunar missions did not complain of appetite, and some gained weight.
3. The shuttle fecal popcorn caused E. coli to grow in the mouth of the crew members, which was exactly the same as on submarines during emergency situations with leaking sewage. NASA is silent about similar cases before the era of shuttles, although there is no lack of information about flying feces.
4. Technological shuttle rollback: "But the toilet for the Space Shuttle turned out to be an engineering embarrassment. The original idea was great - let's make a toilet in which the air currents will themselves put feces into the receiving device without the participation of an astronaut. However, it was not possible to achieve reliable operation - The faeces constantly touched the walls of the tunnel, and the astronauts had to constantly clean it. The faeces packing system did not work reliably enough, the toilet broke down regularly enough. Also, to use the toilet had to undergo special training … Urine leaks and flying faeces were not so rare."
The above points clearly and convincingly show that the real era of NASA manned flights began with the advent of shuttles, and before that all flights, including to the moon, were simply mystified. On the shuttles, NASA's automated control systems were first tested, but due to the lack of experience in their creation, the design was unsuccessful. The funny stories about the toilet problems of astronauts only reflect the ideas of the directors and screenwriters of these shows about the forefront of the struggle for space: it was difficult, sometimes hard and unbearable, smeared with feces - who does not happen to, but on the whole it was fun and uplifting. Moreover, the humor is typically American: anal-fecal. How can a show do without him ?!
But the showmen had no idea about the degree of influence of manned space flights on the human body, so their shows do not talk about the dire consequences, because there were no flights themselves! Even on their favorite anal-fecal topic, the writers left out some important details. For example, that the physiology of great need is always accompanied by a small one, i.e. it is impossible to simply fill a large need in a bag - the release of liquid waste will involuntarily occur. Those. it is necessary to put on a urine collector, but it will not work with it not only to stick the bag to the buttocks, but also to empty the intestines, because the straps of the urine collector overlap the anus. Moreover, the adhesive tape adhesion to sweaty, hairy buttocks is extremely weak, and the bag is almost impossible to fix.
Thus, the whole procedure must include complete undressing, then the astronaut must somehow attach a hygiene bag to the fifth point, which of course will fly away with the sudden and natural release of gases, and then put a container on the penis to collect liquid waste, showing the world an enchanting crown of NASA engineering. Isn't it a plot for a burlesque production?..
Output
Until the 80s, the Americans not only did not fly to the moon, but also did not make long flights in earth orbit. Otherwise, their spacecraft would be equipped with an automated control system, and we would see how astronauts, exhausted by weightlessness, are carefully taken out of the descent capsule, which in reality was not. They jumped briskly and immediately march to the celebrations, carrying, according to NASA, overcrowded "faecal retention subsystems."
December 7, 2014 - June 29, 2015
