A malfunction in the toilet seems funny until it happens during one of the most intricate feats humans have achieved. This odd fact became apparent during the Artemis 2 mission, where NASA had to temporarily turn the first ever manned lunar journey in over half a century into a demonstration that space travel depends on more than rockets and other engineering marvels. Wiseman reacted strongly against those ridiculing his team, stating emphatically that: “I just want to say, 100% point blank: That was a wonderful toilet. The toilet worked great.” While that was strictly true, the problem actually began further along the line, in the system responsible for expelling liquid wastes into deep space from within Orion’s hull.
This is important because waste management systems are not an afterthought in spacecraft construction. They are a vital part of the life support system, and in a mission lasting only as long as one orbit around the moon, astronaut tolerance to discomfort begins to take its toll fairly quickly. Commander Wiseman noted that Orion was limited to storing fewer than 10 urinations before it was necessary to vent some, so it becomes clear why any blockage is important.
In general terms, Orion uses a miniaturized form of the Universal Waste Management System designed for improved efficiency and comfort for the crew. In microgravity, there is no such thing as gravity, and without that force to guide wastes, it becomes imperative to use suction and flow to keep anything from escaping or contaminating other equipment. This mission also featured something the old Apollo astronauts did not enjoy – a personal toilet compartment with a door. Hansen had mentioned it prior to launch as one of the rare times on a mission when an astronaut felt truly alone.
A major difference between the two missions came from the fact that the International Space Station recycles water and urine into drinking water; according to NASA, the ISS currently recovers about 90% of all liquid waste. However, the short period in which the crew members remained on the mission meant that there was no way to recycle the water and it simply had to be released into space; Wiseman described this sight as a billion little tiny flecks of ice heading out into deep space.
NASA considered initial problems arising from ice forming at the nozzle, and although these were ruled out, the problem did not go away when the system heated up and changed orientation. NASA’s current theory of events considers a relatively minor initial malfunction to become increasingly worse as the mission progressed, possibly due to the chemistry involved in treating the wastewater. An exact determination of what happened in the vent system will be made in post mission analysis.
The incident once again showed that human spacecraft hardware fails in ways not usually associated with glamor, and that systems handling waste products are mission critical to ensuring normal operations during space missions. Historian David Munns, commenting on the topic, wrote that having the ability to deal with waste is mission critical. Wiseman defended the hardware, saying, Those great engineers that made that toilet, I don’t want them hanging their head low. They should hang it very high. It was a great piece of gear.