Warning – this story is loaded with puns and might put you off your breakfast/lunch. During the 1960s and early 1970s, astronauts did not have a formal toilet, just not-nice-to-use faecal bags (US spelling “fecal” bags) and wet wipes, leading some to try and avoid going to the loo altogether via the use of Imodium. But some did have to go and regular readers will remember us publishing part of a transcript from Apollo 10 in which in a storage accident – to the panic of the astronauts, a lump of faecal matter escaped and started floating around the spacecraft. None of the crew admitted whose it was, sometimes denying its ownership on the basis of its relative “stickiness”. Well that was then, but this type of escapee poop incident are still happening – this time on the International Space Station (ISS).
In a podcast rebroadcast on BBC Radio 4 this week, former British ESA astronaut Tim Peake revealed that on one of his space trips he and his fellow astronauts were warned to watch out for another escapee “floater” on the ISS after an astronaut lost track of his as he was trying to turn the toilet’s suction fan on. No, the “s**t” doesn’t really hit the fan on the ISS but it is needed to pull the said items into bags in zero gravity – yes disposal bags are still needed. However, in this instance, that there was an expected item NOT in the bagging area. Thus, the embarrassed crewman concerned had to warn his colleagues about a “A close encounter of the turd kind”.
The International Space Station (ISS). Courtesy: NASA
By the way, the escapee turd was mysteriously never found. The full story is here in The Sun tabloid newspaper which provides even more puns about the “Captain’s Log”, “Klingons” and “Flush Gordon”, just in case they are needed. The Sun struggled hard but even managed to worry one out in a joke about Uranus, although its very lame pun about calling down to “Poo-ston” was clearly unforgiveable. According to The Sun, the suspects included Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra (not sure if this is supposed to be a subtly clever Sun pun about urine and Coprophilia?)
Still, at least, the astronauts now have a toilet in space – if not a golden one. Actually, back on Earth, an 18 carat gold fully functioning toilet – installed as an art installation at Blenheim Palace, England – was stolen in 2019. The thieves looked like they were going to get away with it – presumably because the police had nothing to go on. However, in the same week as the ISS toilet error revelation – the alleged culprits have reportedly just been apprehended and formally charged. The “six million dollar pan” – that is is actual value – has yet to be recovered.
While you might think this latter story sounds a bit “Brad Pitt” or “Pony and Trap” (a bit of cockney-rhyming robber slang there) or just a load of golden showers, the full story is here.
