In Space, No-one Can Hear You.....Um.....Pee

I read a rather interesting article recently, one that deals with one of the most fundamental human acts; weeing. But not just weeing in general, weeing when in zero gravity environments. Since us humans are quite a curious bunch, it was inevitable that at some point we would gaze beyond the distant horizon and then decide to travel there, just because we were bored. So we figured out how to get a man into space but, and I wish I were making this up, didn't know if his various organs, including his bladder and the ability to swallow, would actually function there. The theory was that, on Earth, we have gravity to help us with our various bodily functions but no-one knew if the same would be true in space. So in accordance with pretty much all human decisions throughout history we thought "Well, there is only one way to find out" and then sent someone up and asked him to have a wee while he was up there.

Unfortunately for the unlucky man, they hadn't actually given much thought as to how he would do this, so he just went in his space suit. First man ever to go to space and he wet himself because they hadn't really thought it through. Eventually someone did spare a brain cell or two and developed a condom-like sheath that they could wear which would funnel urine into a special container. But every time nature called, the sheath would blow off and they'd end up with pee in their suits anyway. The reason for this? The male ego. The sheaths came in small, medium and large and all the astronauts claimed they needed the large one. They didn't.

Another quite delicate bodily function was that of pooping. Because early on space toilets hadn't been invented yet, astronauts had to tape a special bag to their backsides in order to have a poop. This failed quite spectacularly for various reasons, chief among which is the fact that, without gravity, poop doesn't break off as it exits the body, so they had to use special gloves in order to help the process along.

These days the space toilets are a lot more functional and efficient but their have been reports of these breaking at times and then you have a large globe of pee exiting the toilet and floating about. And because of special chemicals to essentially keep it sterile, it is bright purple and highly acidic. This is also a very good reason not to eat any milk duds you find floating around!

Before I end, just a few more fun facts:
Firstly, farts do not propel you in space, astronauts have tried. So no matter how rich in baked beans your meal was, the human body just doesn't create enough pressure during farting to actually propel you anywhere.

Secondly, never burp in space. Gravity normally keeps food in your stomach, so in a zero gravity environment burps almost always tend to be accompanied by solid matter.

Thirdly, gravity is usually required for your body to realise that you have to go, so astronauts don't always realise that nature is banging at the door. This means they need bathroom schedules so as not to wet/poop themselves.

And lastly, in the early days of the international space station, a water purifying unit that worked absolutely flawlessly on earth kept getting clogged up in space. The reason? The astronauts were losing bone density in the zero gravity environment and were peeing out the calcium in their bones, thus clogging the system. And here we always thought being an astronaut was glamorous!