Astronauts who left the International Space Station earlier this weekend will be stuck in diapers on their way home due to a broken toilet in their capsule.
NASA astronaut Megan MacArthur described Friday’s situation as “suboptimal” but manageable.
“Space travel is fraught with many small challenges,” he said at a press conference from orbit. “This is just another one we will meet and take care of on our mission. So we’re not too worried about it.” Mission managers may decide on Friday whether to return MacArthur and three of his colleagues to the SpaceX capsule. before launching their alternatives. The launch was already delayed by more than a week due to bad weather and an undisclosed medical issue involving crew members. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet told reporters that the past six months had been very intense there. The cosmonauts go on a series of space trips to modernize the station’s power grid, and are subjected to an accidental lightning strike by a docked Russian vehicle that sends the station on short cycles, and hosts a special Russian camera crew—the space station first. They also had to deal with toilet leaks, pulling over panels in the SpaceX capsule and finding puddles of urine. The problem was first noticed during a private SpaceX flight in September, when a non-stick tube leaked out and urine spilled under the floorboards. SpaceX installed a toilet in the capsule while waiting for liftoff, but deemed the toilet in orbit unusable. The engineers determined that the capsules suffered no structural damage from the urine and were safe to return.
Culinary-wise, the astronauts planted the first chili peppers in space — “a great morale boost,” according to MacArthur. They experimented with their harvest last week, adding chopped green and red peppers to their tacos.
“They have a nice spice to them, and it burns a little constantly. Some find it more annoying than others,” he said. They will also return with McArthur and Pesquet: NASA astronaut Shin Kimbrough and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshied. SpaceX launched it to the space station on April 28.
American and Rousan will remain on the space station after their departure. While it would have been nice if their alternative had arrived first — to share tips on living in space — Kimbra said the remaining NASA astronauts would fill in on the newcomers.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is automatically generated from a shared feed.)
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