$Commode and privacy for under 200 dollars. Nasa can even get a discount with a Camping World card.
Posted on 07/04/2007 12:38:53 PM PDT by anymouse
CONTRACT RELEASE: C07-028
NASA Awards Contract for Space Station Hardware
HOUSTON - NASA has signed a $46 million fixed price basic contract with S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Public Corporation, also known as RSC Energia, in Korolev, Russia, for various hardware items and their integration into the International Space Station.
The basic contract includes $19 million to purchase a Russian-designed toilet system with a privacy enclosure and additional space station equipment. The additional equipment includes a spare depress air pump used to conserve air when the crew exits the Quest airlock for a spacewalk; technical and engineering support for the mechanism that allows shuttles to dock with the station; software updates for the station's inventory management system; and certification of additional computer hardware for use on the station.
The toilet system, similar to the one already in use in the station's Zvezda Service Module, is needed for the planned expansion from three to six crew members in 2009. The system will be able to automatically transfer urine to a U.S. device that can generate potable water.
The contract runs through December 2011 and includes funds to procure equipment necessary for routine maintenance.
space ping
Next up - the National Institute of Health to announce the hiring of recently graduated Muslim doctors to treat returning injured American servicemembers.
$Commode and privacy for under 200 dollars. Nasa can even get a discount with a Camping World card.
Let the Russians build the toilets, but was NASA *not* paying attention last month when the Russians blew out their control computers for a few days?
It doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence when the Russian station leader says in an interview about the computer crash, "We learned what the word 'ping' means."
-PJ
Does this mean the Russians are also doing work Americans don’t want to do? If the Russians are participating in the space stations operation, then why aren’t they also paying for it as well?
Toilets of Russian design tend to be a pair of foot pads and a hole in the floor. Perhaps they should have held out for Western style facilities, instead.
Unfortunately, the Russian space toilet is makes more sense than ours. It makes small compressed poop patties that are fairly easy to deal with.
The Russian toilet is much more elegant than the U.S. shuttle toilet (the U.S. side of the space station doesn’t have one.) The shuttle toilet has a tendency of breaking down at exactly the wrong time (when you are in space and it is the only toilet available, anytime it is down is the wrong time.) The backup option on shuttle (and the primary option on the space station prior to the Russian Service Module bringing up the only toilet aboard the station, was to poop in a bag. now that’s roughing it.
Having a second toilet on the space station is a good idea and a necessity once you get more than a few crew living there. No one wants to wait in line and if one is broken you have another option beside pooping in a bag. Also being able to recycle the urine into drinkable water will be handy with a larger crew, as you only have so much room to stow the water bags, and if the shuttle missions are delayed the shuttle won’t be there often enough to use the fuel cells to make enough water for a 6 member crew.
That’s funny. I envisioned a toilet with a trap door to the outside - hit the flush handle, a momentary blast of decompression through the toilet drain, all gone! Whoosh!
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