On Wed, 28 May 2008 00:39:01 +0000 (UTC), David Lesher
wb8foz at (no spam) panix.com> wrote:

Oberg is reporting the toilet is not doing all that well.

Better then these <http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/col/smith/2002/10/03/askthepilot13/
guys but......

...I wonder if anyone's flushed anything down they weren't supposed
to? Anything with a string, perhaps?

[I am *SO* going to get yelled at for that one...]

On Thu, 29 May 2008 22:01:02 -0700, "Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary
Shafer)" <reunite.gondwana at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:


By whom, she asks as she looks about casually.


...Brad Guth, naturally. I mean, after all, he's a...no, wait. We went
through this once before. I know better now, age + wisdom and all that
:-)

("Or was that thrice burned in one shot?" - Pat)

...Hell, there's still people out there that are surprised that ISS
has a toilet! We got the masses so trained in the FCU and UCD methods
that they think they're still using just those :-P

Question of the week...if they crap in the baggies and seal them, I
assume they are airtight.
So what's to stop the bacteria in the bolus* from producing gas and
causing the bag to swell up and explode?

Back in the old Salyut/Mir days this problem would be easily solved...
those bags would be flying out of the small-diameter scientific airlock

That was the basic idea with the Salyut/Mir airlock trash ejections.
Jettison it with enough velocity to clear the microgravity environment
of the station and let atmospheric drag slow it down till it reentered
several weeks or months later.


I was looking for an approach that didn't waste air on such...

I'm thinking torsion catapult, seeing as how a trebuchet might have some
issues without a gravity field...

If it doesn't experience enough atmospheric drag on it's first
independent orbit, isn't the baggie going to meet after once around
back at the point of the original impulse, and perhaps go "splat" on a
viewport or solar array?

Only if the designers are silly enough to have the system eject in the
radial or out-of-plane direction.

One of the plans for Space Station Freedom was going to use a linear
accelerator to fire the crew's solid waste at high velocity backwards to
its orbital path, causing the waste to fall into the atmosphere right
after ejection...while at the same time using the recoil to help prevent
orbital decay via air drag by adding velocity to the station itself.
Although a interesting idea, this concept got a lot of fun poked at it.

If it doesn't experience enough atmospheric drag on it's first
independent orbit, isn't the baggie going to meet after once around
back at the point of the original impulse, and perhaps go "splat" on a
viewport or solar array?

Obviously it's a big planet and a small target so the amount of
ongoing influence necessary to insure a miss the first time around
would be slight - but I'd be curious to know if enough occurs that
it's considered safe. I suppose even a hit is likely to be at fairly
low velocity (whatever you accelerated it to on separation) but could
also make approach interesting if a shuttle, soyuz, or progress is due
in the next week or so.

Now if they left out the antiseptic, fitted the bag with a nozzle
sealed by a low-pressure membrane, and stored it for *just* the right
amount of time before jettisoning...

...Most of them also led straight into the old question as to whether
one could propel themselves by farting in zero-gee.

...Most of them also led straight into the old question as to whether
one could propel themselves by farting in zero-gee.

Only if the designers are silly enough to have the system eject in the
radial or out-of-plane direction.

If the designers have enough rudimentary smarts to have the system
eject retrograde, the resulting orbit will have a shorter period so
that by the time the trash returns to apogee, it will be considerably
ahead of the station.

Scott Hedrick wrote:
If one intends to ignite said fart, consider this:
http://firechief.com/training/apparel/underware-defense-0101/


When I accidentally ignited the one pound can of gunpowder in my right
hand 26 years back, the velour shirt ignited, the cotton briefs survived
just fine, and the polyester pants over the briefs _literally_ vaporised.
Which is probably just as well, as I didn't end up with burning molten
polyester all over the front of my legs.
This was a unique take on the concept of a ablative heatshield that I
frankly don't want to repeat.

(Of course, if one were to soak those turds in hydrogen peroxide and
leave the bag of them burning just outside the ISS airlock door, it
would be a pretty good joke.)

Pat, what does it say about this group, that it can find a link between a
plugged space toilet and the flame-retardant properties of underwear?