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How Cold War foes became close colleagues — until toilets got in the way
How Cold War foes became close colleagues — until toilets got in the way. It was November 20, 1998, and a rocket wasn't an unusual sight in this remote part of Kazakhstan. But today's cargo was a piece of history that would have seemed impossible just years before.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries on Dec 05, 2025 at 7:57 PM
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That was interesting, thank you. Perceiving space as something to be conquered by force rather than understood through collaboration is a loss of our collective humanity.
(Also the use of the word "beavering" in the article gave me a chuckle, I don't think a US-based writer would've said that.)
posted by wicked_sassy at 3:50 AM
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"Space archaeologist"
This job. How do I get it?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:54 AM
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I can't away unsatisfied with the lack of explicit detail about the toilet dispute.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:57 AM
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Also unsatisfied with the dearth of space toilet content, I went digging: the toilet was Russian-made but installed on the US side of the station and had problems from the start. The toilet on the Russian side, of the same design, does not appear to have had issues.
In July, 2009, the toilet broke down. NASA Astronaut Hal Getzelman described the situation thusly:
"What happened, the pre-treat (chemical), we think, flooded the pump separator and we may have got some fluid where we didn't want it and it'll take us a while to work through a procedure to recover."
ESA Astronaut Frank de Wynne led Mission STS 127, the ISS Waste & Hygiene Compartment (WHC) Repair mission. It appears overheating may have contributed to the breakdown. Mission Control laid out this Space Toilet Usage Protocol:
3. WHC USAGE TIME CONSTRAINTSWith the high usage on WHC we would like to remind you about time constraints for WHC usage. These can be found on 2.301 WHC Cue Card under the block "WHC Time Constraints."- Recommend 6 min interval between use.- Three uses in a row
posted by Headfullofair at 6:13 AM
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