A Plunger! My Kingdom for a Plunger!

"Houston, we've had a problem here..."
"This is Houston, say again, please."
"Houston, sh*tter's full."

This morning, everyone is waiting for Artemis II to safely splash down after its amazing, record-setting, very historic trip around the dark side of the moon. Though, oddly enough, I think I saw this movie when I was 8 years old. But hey, who doesn't love a good sequel?

Unlike most space adventures, this crew probably won't stop at a podium readied on the deck of some Navy ship and regale their fellow Americans with their recent adventures. Nope. I'm sure they are going to hit that deck running. Pause only long enough to ask, "Where is it?" And go full speed ahead for... the head. It's tough to hold it for ten days, oh, regular readers. And there is nothing, no nothing like returning from a long trip and using the home throne to lay down a stink pickle. If not actually popping a squat at home, at least they're here on earth, where they can rely on gravity when they release that Kraken. Poop deck, indeed.

Only then will they be able to gather in front of the cameras, smile for the cameras, and speak of great lunar adventures. Big smiles of relief.

It happens. To err'body. You go to the party, overindulge at the buffet, and excuse yourself to find the water closet. After dropping a spectacular duece in someone else's lovely home, you flush, wash your hands, and out of the corner of your eye, you realize that the tide is rising. And it's lifting all boats. And suddenly, you find prayer, even though you couldn't even be bothered on Easter Sunday. You call for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or whatever other plumbing company can clear these pipes. If He can roll the stone away a few days ago, surely he can push down the mess you just made. But the tide keeps rising.

At least you're on earth. Some spillage may occur. Grab a couple of guest towels, smear that sewage around, collecting as much as possible, and toss those towels in the shower out of sight. If a plunger is under the counter, have a go at it, but otherwise, leave that crime scene. If you know the host, mention that you overheard that there was a problem in the loo. Blame the kids if there are any. Mention that the weird couple left early.

But I digest. (Which is the root of all these problems.)

The Artemis II crew barely cleared Earth's atmosphere when they began having trouble with the poo-poo potty. Or the Universal Waste Disposal System (UWDS), as NASA calls it. The $30 million Universal Waste Disposal System.

(Maybe it's time we got the Buccee's people on this. One thing they know about is building toilets.)

Four of Earth's most highly skilled engineers (Astronauts) examined the apparatus. It was found that a fan had jammed. And they just needed to add some water to prime the pump. (Engineer-speak. Way over my head.) “I’m proud to call myself the space plumber,” NASA astronaut Christina Koch later told mission control after the fan fired up. “We were all breathing a sigh of relief when it turned out to be just fine.”

Like all home repairs, the first fix never quite does the trick. Days later, the toilet declined to function for a second time. This time, the tube meant to vent pee to the outside of the spacecraft clogged with frozen urine. The crew cleverly rotated that side of the ship to face the sun, turned on some heaters, and finally the peescicles gave way.

Five days into the mission, more sh*tty news. The restroom remained out of order.

“We just wanted to let you know that toilet right now is no go for use as we stick with the predetermined limit for now,” Jenni Gibbons, capsule communicator (CAPCOM) at Mission Control informed the team. “All crew members, please use CCUs.”

CCUs? The Collapsible Contingency Urinal, because there is nothing that NASA won't turn into an acronym. This is, and I can only assume that I am understanding this correctly, a large, expensive ShopVac with a NASA sticker on the side that comes with attachments. Very medieval-looking attachments.

And dear friends, breathing can be a real issue in a tiny space capsule. What happens when waste matter escapes? Apollo 10 famously (or infamously) had such a situation that became known as "The Turd Incident." (No, really.) Here is the actual recording of the astronauts as they wrangle some escaped space dookie.

This was before any real toilet was provided. There were plastic bags taped to your butt. There was that ShopVac. With attachments. There were diapers. Excuse me - "MAGs." You know MAGs. Maximum Absorption Garments.

Diapers. Complicated diapers.

Or you can just tape a butt bag on and let her rip.

from the WaPo archives: Pooping in space has sure come a long way from the 1960s, when astronauts used adhesives to attach fecal collection bags to their butts. Going to the bathroom back then could take up to an hour.

The early moon missions jettisoned waste, even leaving bags of urine and poo behind.

Kinda gross in itself. Imagine bouncing around on the moon with almost no gravity. Not paying attention. Having a bit of fun.

"Hey, you guys smell something?"
"Wasn't me, man."
"Aw, Neil. I think you stepped in it. Or bounced in it. You didn't wipe your feet?"
"Shoot. Sorry."
"Leave your boots outside the hatch. Don't track that stuff in here. Or better yet, go walk around a while. We need some dramatic photos of footprints up here."

(Excrement produced on the International Space Station, however, is in fact destined for a bit of razzle-dazzle. The station jettisons solid waste, which turns to flame in the atmosphere not dissimilar to a shooting star. Astronaut Scott Kelly produced 180 pounds of shooting-star feces during his year in space, NASA noted in 2015. )

So, you know, don't be in such a hurry to chase that meteor that you saw flying to Earth.

In the ISS (International Space Station) Astronaut Scott Kelly says “I had to clean up a gallon-sized ball of urine mixed with acid,” Kelly told Biography.com in a video interview produced with Reddit. “Essentially, the sulfuric acid that is mixed with the urine basically keeps the toilet from clogging up...If you could imagine, something like Drano.”

This is the part of our story where, because we're living in a dystopian 2026, we must make some mention of Trump. He rang up the crew to chit-chat, as he is wont to do, and congratulate them on their mission. He rambled on, as he is wont to do. The Astronauts just pasted smiles on their faces, as they are trained to do.

However, some things didn't come up in their conversation...

The White House federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 has been working its way through Capitol Hill. It proposes to reduce NASA’s overall funding by nearly a quarter and to slash NASA’s science budget by nearly half. In inflation-adjusted dollars, if enacted into law, the White House’s spending plan for NASA is estimated to be the smallest budget the space agency has seen since 1961.

But the crew kept those smiles. Probably the toughest part of the mission. Part of it is just their decency and years of training - years of knowing that being in the public eye means putting on a brave and positive face. Even if their budget is being cut out from under them.

Or maybe it's a different smile. Maybe it's the smile that says that they really have to go. It's been 10 days, man. They just really have to go.