An unpleasant fault in the ISS bath forces astronauts to extreme precautions

Living in space is full of challenges. One of the most earthly is the frequency with which the toilets of the International Space Station are spoiled.

A ghost threat. Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi told on social networks that his weekend had been crowded by “a strange damage in the bathroom just before Saturday lunch.”

In a somewhat cryptic way, Onishi reported That, after the incident, he had been “living with fear of the ghost threat, an invisible threat” that his followers soon interpreted as an unpleasant olfactory experience.

Extreme precautions. Finally, Saturday’s breakdown in one of the toilets of the International Space Station has persisted this week, forcing astronauts to take drastic measures, such as giving up coffee.

“The bathroom worked badly before yesterday,” explains Onishi in his X profile. “I had to spend yesterday without even taking a cup of coffee,” he laments. For a “coffee lover”, like He describes himselfthe measure reflects the seriousness with which the crew of expedition 73 are living the breakdown.

The nth fault of the WC. On Wednesday, NASA astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann “did an emergency maintenance in the afternoon, so I could enjoy a quiet morning again,” Onishi account.

But the ghost threat persists. The bathrooms of the American segment of the Space Station have been for weeks, if not months, giving war. Without going any further, on July 15, Onishi himself He spent two hours replacing the “toilet pump separator”, a key piece that centrifuges urine and air.

A Russian eschatological roulette. In May, the problems were even more evident. After change a defective pump Together with his NASA partner Jonny Kim, Takuya Onishi compared the use of the bathroom with “playing Russian roulette.”

On another occasion, the breakdowns light was turned on at dawn. “Not to wake up others, I secretly contacted Houston and took care of the situation,” The Japanese astronaut commented. With humor, he added that the six times that the fault light had lit, he had been present in five. From the mission control they replied: “You are the chosen one.”

A complicated engineering. The International Space Station has four toilets: two in the Russian segment (in the Zvezdá and Nauka modules) and two in the US segment (the WHC and The modern UWMSboth in the Tranquility module). These systems are engineering wonders that use air suction instead of water.

While Urine is recycled through a processor complex To turn it into drinking water, solid waste is collected in bags inside hermetic containers. The containers are stored and, finally, are discarded in load ships designed to burn in the atmospheresuch as American Cygnus or Russian progress.

Why do they fail so much. He New UWMS toilet He has given many problems since his installation, but he is not the only one who fails. In recent years there has been From water leaks In the urine pretreatment system until Simultaneous breakdowns in all toilets. Each failure requires that astronauts, who are also the plumbers of the station, dedicate time and effort to complex repairs in small spaces.

Onishi’s story, a veteran astronaut in his second long -term stay, is a reminder that life in orbit mixes scientific experiments in microgravity with much more mundane challenges. For now, thanks to an emergency repair, normality and coffee have returned to the International Space Station.

Images | NASA, JAXA

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