You’d be a lying crazy person if you said it hasn’t crossed your mind, and in the 1960s it was one of the most common questions posed to NASA’s astronauts: how do you go to the bathroom in space? The answer is less sophisticated than you might expect and there was never a space age solution to the problem. Rather, the galactic crapper was born out of necessity. 
 
 NASA’s first manned spaceflight program flew the Mercury capsule, which was one of the most complex and intricate machines ever built when the program began manned flights in 1961. Closed negative feedback loops made all the onboard systems self-regulating. As a safety measure, the capsule could be controlled by the astronaut, mission control, or by a flight plan pre-programmed into the capsule’s computer. The cabin was pressurized, too, with 100-percent oxygen and featured an environmental control system that removed odors, carbon dioxide, and moisture. Pure oxygen also circulated through the astronauts’ pressure suit with the same effects; he stayed cool and dry because the oxygen flow promoted evaporation of his sweat. 
 
 Despite the high-tech capsule and clothing, there was one glaring oversight in the original Mercury mission planning: there was no thought to the astronaut having to urinate during the flight. McDonnell Aircraft, the company who built the capsule, makes no mention of bathrooms of any kind in the nearly 500 page familiarization manual it sent to NASA. 
 
 It wasn’t as if everyone just forgot astronauts are human and need to pee; no one thought it was something worth addressing this early on in the space age. The flights were short, surly the astronauts could hold it for a few hours while they orbited the Earth. Details of human functions in space could wait for later missions. It wasn’t a detail anyone thought should slow progress towards getting a man in space. 
 
 From the astronaut’s perspective, however, a spaceflight is a different story. No mission ever lasted the few minutes or hours planned; the astronaut spent hours waiting for launch locked inside his capsule during countdown. Any holds for technical glitches or weather just made his wait longer. A short mission could easily turn into a full day. 
 
 This was the problem facing Alan Shepard, America’s first astronaut, as he lay on his couch in his Freedom 7 capsule. Shepard’s flight was a fifteen minute suborbital hop — a very doable flight plan without a washroom handy. But Shepard’s role in the flight didn’t last a mere fifteen minutes. He entered the capsule hours before launch, and by the time he was getting close to blasting off, the astronaut had to, you know, go real bad. 
 
 He radioed fellow Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper who was serving as capcom for the mission for permission to leave the capsule to use the washroom — the gantry was still attached to the capsule, how difficult could it be? His request was denied. Depressurizing the capsule, exiting, and then going through the whole process of ingress and repressurization would set the countdown back. Cooper advised Shepard to hold it. 
 
 Desperate, Shepard told Cooper he was going to have to wet his suit, a potentially risky move since he was covered inside and out with biomedical sensors. Sensing defeat, mission control relented. But no, they didn’t let him out to race to wherever an astronaut could potentially race at a launchpad, The biomed sensors were turned off and Shepard was free to relieve himself safely in his suit. His supine position meant he was momentarily lying in a sizable puddle of his own urine before the oxygen flow inside the suit dried his long underwear. Within minutes, he was dry and the biomed sensors were back online. Not long after, America’s first astronaut launched comfortably into history. 
 
 The second manned spaceflight was a copy of the first — Gus Grissom made the same short flight, which meant that his mission also lacked a urine collection device. Hoping to prevent a repeat of Shepard’s wet episode, Grissom was given a makeshift, homemade system: a garter belt with a condom connected to a collection bag allowed Grissom to urinate without wetting his suit. It also gave Grissom the distinction of being the only astronaut of the era to fly in lingerie. 
 
 The garter belt and condom was replaced with a properly designed urine collection system. An external urine collection device — a tube emptying into a bag with a one-way valve to prevent backflow — allowed the astronauts to relieve themselves during a mission. 
 
 Longer missions complicated things as one bag wouldn’t be sufficient. For the last Mercury flight, Gordon Cooper’s Faith 7, a urine containment system was added to the capsule. Cooper had multiple urine bags to which he could attach the tube. His urine could either be pumped out the side of the capsule or brought back to the lab for scientific analysis.The system was a little difficult to use, but it did the job. The external urine collection device became a staple of space race-era missions. 
 
 With the Gemini program, a second “function” posed a new challenge. One of the program’s central goals was to achieve long-duration spaceflight since a trip to the moon was expected to take up to two weeks. This means that a urine collection system wouldn’t be enough; Gemini mission planners had to develop a poop containment system as well. 
 
 This was a harder nut to crack since fecal matter couldn’t be dumped out of the spacecraft like urine. It had to be stored as neatly as possible. 
 
 As a preemptive measure, Gemini crews were given low residue foods in the hope of making their bowel movements smaller and less frequent. Nevertheless, they still needed a system. The solution was a foot long tube-shaped bag with an adhesive lining the open rim containing a small number of crystals designed to absorb moisture and neutralize odors. The bags were stored in the spacecraft and the samples analyzed by doctors after splashdown to determine how the body absorbs and digests nutrients without gravity. 
 
 Using this crude space crapper was a difficult task. Astronauts had to take special care to make sure everything remained contained — feces floating around a spacecraft in zero gravity has got to be a universally unappealing image. In many cases, the astronauts would try to hold off using the “fecal containment system,” as it was called, but some missions were just too long, like Gemini 7’s record two week mission. Astronauts Jim Lovell and Frank Borman broke down and had to use. The Navy SEALS who recovered the crew after splashdown commented that their spacecraft smelled worse than a latrine. 
 
 The larger Apollo spacecraft afforded the crew a very minimal amount of washroom privacy. Common practice had one astronaut strip down completely naked — wedding rings and all — while the other two crew members got has far away from him as possible. Being nude made clean up a comparatively easier affair. 
 
 For the crews who landed on the moon, using the washroom was both easier and harder. The one-sixth gravity was enough to keep anything from floating around the cabin. The flip side of a stay on the moon was that astronauts couldn’t just pop back into the lunar module to relieve themselves midway through a moonwalk. 
 
 So, NASA diapered its astronauts. (Neil Armstrong’s is pictured below.) Underneath their long johns and inside the highly sophisticated pressure suit that allowed the astronauts to travel freely around the lunar surface, delivered a steady flow of oxygen, controlled his temperature, and kept fresh drinking water within reach of his mouth, all moon-walking astronauts had a urine collection bag like the Mercury astronauts and a diaper. 
 
 The prospect of cleaning up after using a diaper was unappealing — washing on an Apollo mission meant wiping up with a damp towel, and in the LM there was no source of hot water. With this in mind, no moonwalker ever used the diaper. Still, accidents happened. Charlie Duke chose to urinate just before lifting off from the moon on Apollo 16. He only found out that his urine containment system had become unattached from his person when he felt a warm stream running down one leg. He began his trip back to Earth with a squishy left boot. 
 
 Longer term missions lasting months on the International Space Station have yielded advances in washroom technology in space, and the shift to mixed-gender crews has made moderate privacy a necessity. Still, there’s something so human about American heros dealing with diapers on the moon. And now you know how astronauts go to the bathroom on the moon. 
 
 Connections: ||||| Challenge Overview 
 
 The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeks proposed solutions for urine, fecal and menstrual management systems to be used in the crew’s launch and entry suits over a continuous duration of up to 144 hours. An in-suit waste management system would be beneficial for contingency scenarios or for any long duration tasks. 
 
 Waste management systems should address fecal, urine, and/or menstrual waste management in a pressurized survival suit environment for six days while protecting the safety and health of crew members. Solutions should provide for urine collection of up to 1L per day per crew member, for a total of 6 days. Fecal collection rates should be targeted for 75 grams of fecal mass and 75 mL fecal volume per crewmember per day for a total of 6 days duration. Menstrual collection systems should handle up to 80 mL over 6 days. 
 
 NASA will award the Solutions it judges to be the most promising for implementation and use on missions in the next three or four years. NASA will consider collaborating with winners and/or other competitors, subject to NASA rules and regulations for contract procurement. 
 
 Background 
 
 Spaceflight launch and entry suits are worn for launch and entry activities to protect the crew from any off-nominal events. Up until now, a crew member could be in their launch and entry suit for more than 10 hours at a time leading up to either a launch or landing scenario, and former astronauts have worn diapers in case they need to relieve themselves. The diaper is only used temporarily until the crew has successfully launched from or returned to Earth. It is eventually removed along with the launch and entry suit. 
 
 Future missions may require long-duration waste management for use by a pressurized suited crew member. In the event of cabin depressurization or other contingency, crew members may need to take refuge in their launch and entry suits for a long-duration (144-hour). The crew member will have less than 60 minutes to get into and seal their spacesuit. To ensure the crew member’s safety, the Solution needs to take no more than 5 minutes of that time. The crew member will remain in their suit at a pressure of 4.3 PSID and in 100% oxygen environment, with a few tasks to complete inside the depressurized vehicle prior to vehicle. A system to route and collect human waste away from the body without the use of hands, that operates in the prescribed environment, is being sought to keep astronauts alive and healthy over 144 hours. 
 
 Current commercial products that provide urine waste management utilize gravity to route and collect urine away from the body. Some require the use of hands, and most are not meant to be used for 144 hours. No commercial products have been found that provide fecal waste management for a 144-hour period with or without the use of hands. While the implemented Solution can be discarded after each mission, it does have to function well for 6 days and multiple bowel and bladder evacuations. 
 
 ABOUT POOPING IN SPACE…. 
 
 This challenge does not require you to be working in a field involving microgravity or to fully understand how the body and fluids work in a microgravity environment. We are going to tell you a bit about what ‘s different. 
 
 First, microgravity is what you might call “Zero Gravity”. Think vacuum. In a vacuum, solids, liquids and gases do not act the way they do on earth, where they are influenced by earth’s gravity. You probably have no problem imagining things floating around in space. Yes, sometimes solids, liquids, and gases do this. But they also might cling to the nearest surface due to surface tension. Imagine taking a shower up in space and having a glob of water under your armpit. Also, on earth, solids and liquids would likely mix together at least a little when in contact. Maybe not in microgravity. 
 
 As for your bodily functions. Well, in space there is no gravity to direct your urine away from your body when you release it. Same for poop. There is no gravity to pull it away when you release it. Menstrual fluid? At least some of it will exit a woman’s body. You don’t want that traveling around your suit. And don’t forget, you can’t always count on poop being solid, especially if you are up in space and nervous about the fact that your vehicle cabin has depressurized. 
 
 You don’t want any of these solids and fluids stuck to your body for 6 days. If you have ever taken care of a baby, you know how easy it is to get diaper rash. Left untreated, that can turn into a dangerous infection. You don’t want fecal matter getting into the urethra or the vagina, causing urinary tract or vaginal infections. Of course, you don’t want them to migrate to mouth, nose, ears or cuts. The point? Your Solution has to keep all of these materials away from the body, its orifices, and the spacesuit air inlet/outlet orifices. 
 
 How has NASA handled this in the past? Well, for one thing, they weren’t handling it for 6 days. Maybe a few hours. In the recent past, astronauts have worn an extremely absorbent adult diaper. Most of the time the diaper is there for emergencies. Prior to that, men wore Urine Collection and Transfer Assembly (UCTA) and Fecal Collection Systems (FCS). Women have never had anything besides the adult diaper while wearing a suit. When not wearing a suit, but within the vehicle, women had a choice of 3 versions of cup-type urine collection systems that used air flow to effectively cause urine to swirl away from a woman’s body. No matter how you look at it, getting rid of wastes has been complicated, crude, uncomfortable, and messy, even with the use of hands. And now we are saying that you don’t have use of your hands – at least not inside the suit next to your body. 
 
 ABOUT THE SPACE SUIT 
 
 You will design a solution that can be incorporated into the orange Modified Advanced Crew Escape Suit (MACES). MACES has been adapted for missions of longer duration than the original Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES) was designed for. 
 
 The whole suit, including the gloves, is pressurized to 4.3 PSID to enable the body to function properly. Without pressure the body swells, loses most of its circulation, and of course, causes extreme pain. The gloves are attached by metal bearings to the sleeves to ensure a proper seal. Once the suit is sealed, it must remain sealed until the astronaut enters another pressurized environment. While sealed, it is impossible for an astronaut to access their own body, even to scratch their nose. 
 
 Gas (100% oxygen) enters at 4.5 cubic feet per minute through a waist level connector to fill the 2” space between the astronaut’s body and the suit, and circulates out through another waist level connector to be cleaned and brought back to the suit. A mesh cover protects against particles getting into the air connectors. If they did get inside, they could easily block the flow of air. 
 
 This gas supply is clearly a very precious commodity. While a very small amount is lost to leakage, the Solution must not add to this leakage. However, careful use of 1000 cubic centimeters per minute (0.01 cubic feet per minute) over a period of 3 minutes per use would not jeopardize the integrity of the suit. 
 
 The suit allows the astronauts to move around, get into tight spaces, and sit down and buckle up for long periods of time. Your Solution should be comfortable in all of these situations. 
 
 Finally, a small power sources of up to 28V with current below 100mA could be provided inside or outside of the suit. 
 
 To learn more about the functionality of space suits in general, see NASA’s What is a Space Suit and Wikipedia’s Space Suit. To read the detailed specifications of the MACES, click here. 
 
 PLANS FOR THE WINNING SOLUTIONS 
 
 NASA is ideally looking for Solutions that are comprised of technologies at a minimum Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of level 4, such that the Solution can be tested within 1 year and fully implemented within 3 years. However, for breakthrough innovations, NASA will consider Solutions that are at a lower TRL and therefore a longer implementation timeline. 
 
 NASA will consider collaborating with winners and/or other competitors, subject to NASA rules and regulations for contract procurement. 
 
 Prizes 
 
 The challenge offers up to $30,000 USD in prizes to innovative solutions for long duration waste management in a microgravity environment. NASA will award up to three prizes for the best ideas. 
 
 NASA will award the Solutions it judges to be the most promising for implementation and use on missions in the next three or four years. 
 
 How do I win? 
 
 To be eligible for an award, the solution must, at minimum: 
 
 Keep urine and/or fecal waste away from a crew member’s body for a minimum of 144 hours while in a space suit 
 
 Operate in a microgravity scenario 
 
 Operate within a full launch and entry suit at an internal pressure of 4.3 PSID and 100% oxygen environment which cannot be opened for manual access within the 144 hour time period 
 
 Operate while a crew member is moving, bending, and/or seated and strapped into a chair 
 
 Manage at least one of the three following human wastes for up to 6 days Manage up to 1L per day of urine per crew member (based on planned liquid intake during mission) Manage up to 75 grams of fecal mass and 75mL fecal volume per crew member (based on planned food intake during mission). Fecal matter may range from liquid to solid, but the Solution is not required to handle uncontrollable, ongoing diarrhea. Manage up to 80 mL of menstrual fluid over 6 days 
 
 Require less than five minutes for a crew member to, on their own, set up and secure the Solution to their body, prior to, or along with, getting into their launch and entry suit. 
 
 Operate effectively for both men and women of varying size and weight within the range of 1% to 99% on the Airforce ANSUR anthropometric database. Please refer to the Resource Page and this document for ranges in relevant measurements for your solution, which might include, but not be limited to: waist circumference (24.2 to 43.5”), Buttock circumference (33.1 to 45.2”), Hip breadth, sitting (31.5 to 46.5”), Waist back (15.4 to 22”) and Waist depth (5.9” to 11.8”). 
 
 The Solution may include a variety of approaches, including, but not limited to: 
 
 Using different management systems for urine versus fecal versus menstruation output and/or males versus females or by size or weight 
 
 Integrating all hardware into one garment that is easy to don 
 
 Keeping collected urine and fecal matter inside the suit or routing it outside the suit, allowing for customization for each crew member, etc. 
 
 The judging panel will rank the eligible Solutions submitted against the following criteria: 
 
 Criteria Description Percent Importance Soundness and Technical Readiness of the design Likelihood that the Solution will work as described to satisfy the minimum requirements with a minimum of risk. This includes the technical readiness level (TLR) of the design. 20 Gas Conservation Effectiveness at ensuring the conservation of gas in the crew member’s suit 10 Health and Safety Level of health and safety the Solution will provide to the crew member including dryness and prevention of pain, infection and permanent injury 15 Suit Integrity Effectiveness ensuring the integrity of the crew member’s suit, including the number of entry/exit points required 15 Speed Ease and feasibility of integrating the Solution with the body and the suit within 5 minutes. 10 Ease of Use/ Constraints Ease of use given the constraints required for using (e.g., clean shaven, limitations on timing of waste elimination, requirement to be near a specific technology, etc.) 10 Comfort Level of physical, emotional, and psychological comfort the crew member will experience using the Solution, including while donning, moving around, and seated and strapped in 10 Ease of Incorporation Ease of incorporating into existing suits and vehicle, 5 Other Benefits Other benefits that the judges identify or the competitor points out that do not fall into the above categories. Could also include judge preferences, such as for simplicity. 5 
 
 Participation Eligibility: 
 
 The Prize is open to individuals, age 18 or older, private teams, public teams, and collegiate teams. Individual competitors and teams may originate from any country, as long as United States federal sanctions do not prohibit participation (see: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/Programs.aspx). If you are a NASA employee, a Government contractor, or employed by a Government Contractor, your participation in this challenge may be restricted. 
 
 Submissions must be made in English. All challenge-related communication will be in English. 
 
 No specific qualifications or expertise in the field of microgravity or waste management is required. Prize organizers encourage outside individuals and non-expert teams to compete and propose new solutions. 
 
 To be eligible to compete, you must comply with all the terms of the challenge as defined in the Challenge-Specific Agreement, which will be made available upon registration. 
 
 Intellectual Property 
 
 Innovators who are awarded a prize for their submission must agree to grant NASA a royalty free, non-exclusive, irrevocable, world-wide license in all Intellectual Property demonstrated by the winning/awarded submissions. See the Challenge-Specific Agreement, which will be made available upon registration, for full details on intellectual property. 
 
 Registration and Submissions: 
 
 Submissions must be made online (only), via upload to the HeroX.com website, on or before 11:59pm EST on December 20th, 2016. All uploads must be in PDF format. No late submissions will be accepted. 
 
 Selection of Winners: 
 
 Based on the winning criteria, prizes will be awarded per the weighted Judging Criteria section above. 
 
 Judging Panel: 
 
 The determination of the winners will be made by HeroX based on evaluation by relevant NASA specialists. 
 
 Additional Information ||||| The Space Poop Challenge sought designs for a system that could collect human waste for up to six days, routing it away from the body without the use of hands 
 
 Astronauts wear adult diapers under their suits in case they need to pee or poop on spacewalks, but what happens if there’s an emergency and they have to stay in their suit for several days? That was the question Nasa posed to members of the public in its Space Poop Challenge, and the winners of the contest have just been announced. 
 
 Black hole and distant sun locked in slow-motion dance of death Read more 
 
 Nasa invited people to submit designs for a system that could collect human waste – faeces, urine and menstrual fluid – for up to six days, routing it away from the body without the use of hands. Critically it had to work in microgravity, where solids, fluids and gases typically float. 
 
 “Spaceflight is not always glamorous,” said Nasa astronaut Rick Mastracchio in a video announcing the contest. “People need to go the bathroom even in a spacecraft. How is this waste treated such that it does not harm the astronaut or even kill them? Given enough time, infection or even sepsis can set in.” 
 
 The winning idea, awarded $15,000 of the $30,000 prize pot, was submitted by air force officer, flight surgeon and family practice physician Thatcher Cardon. 
 
 He drew on his experience with keyhole surgery to come up with a small airlock in the groin area of the suit, with a variety of items including bedpans and diapers that could be inserted through a small hole and expanded. 
 
 “I mean, they can even replace heart valves now through catheters in an artery. So it should be able to handle a little bit of poop!” he told NPR. 
 
 Such a waste management system is a necessary precaution as Nasa starts to send people beyond the low-Earth orbit of the International Space Station – for example to the moon or Mars. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nasa astronaut Rick Mastracchio talks about pooping in space. 
 
 “Now Nasa is going beyond low-Earth orbit into lunar orbit and beyond, we have to figure out ways to keep astronauts alive and healthy for many days after a major malfunction, such as loss of vehicle pressure,” Mastracchio said. 
 
 He described a scenario where the spacecraft has a technical problem that causes a loss of cabin pressure. “The crew will need to quickly put on their space suits to protect themselves from the vacuum of space.” 
 
 Second place and $10,000 went to a team of three from Houston, made up of doctor Tony Gonzales, dentist Katherine Kin and University of Houston engineering professor Stacey Louie. They developed something called an “air-push urinary girdle”, which uses air to push urine or menstrual waste down and through an exit tube. 
 
 His team said the design could also have applications on Earth. 
 
 “I think it could be used in hospital settings, nursing homes ... anywhere where incontinence is a problem,” team captain Gonzales told the Guardian. 
 
 British designer Hugo Shelley came in third, winning $5,000 with his catheter-based design (“It’s an external catheter; trying to insert an internal catheter would be horrendously stressful to do in space,” he told the Guardian), combined with a mechanism for compressing, sealing and sanitizing solid waste and storing it in the back of the suit. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest British designer Hugo Shelley came third, winning $5,000. Photograph: Nasa 
 
 When he’s not building waste management systems for astronauts, Shelley develops electronic tricks for magicians and builds product prototypes for startups. 
 
 His proposed design uses electronics and mechanical elements to move liquids and gases. “In microgravity you have to rely on capillary action, pumps or fans. That’s what the larger waste disposal systems [on the spacecraft] use. Part of the design takes elements of that and miniaturizes it.” 
 
 Nasa will now incorporate elements of the ideas into prototypes that might eventually be tested aboard the International Space Station. 
 
 “It might be the closest I ever get to being in space,” Shelley said. “Although I still haven’t given up hope of being an astronaut.”
– It was a mission-critical element: the size of NASA astronauts' manhood. Seriously. The Houston Chronicle resurrects the fascinating historical tidbit by way of the Science Channel's Moon Machines documentary series, in which engineer Donald Rethke explained the very precise nature of early space diapers. The Maximum Absorbency Garment system, donned by Gemini and Apollo astronauts, featured one very specific element: a sleeve likened to a condom with a hole at the tip that enabled the men to urinate into a pouch with a one-way valve in their suits. Three sleeve sizes were available, small, medium, and large. And astronauts couldn't fib, explains Rethke. If they decided to order the next size up, the sheath wouldn't fit snugly, and liquid could potentially leak out, causing damage. To make the process a little less embarrassing, the sizes were later renamed: large, gigantic, and humongous. Motherboard notes that the urination issue was first brought to the fore by Alan Shepard, who spent hours in the Freedom 7 capsule in advance of a quick 15-minute "suborbital hop." Denied permission to leave the capsule, he opted to pee in his suit—forcing Mission Control to turn off his biomedical sensors until the flow of oxygen in the suit dried the pee, allowing the sensors to be switched on. Today's astronauts enjoy actual restrooms, though MAG systems are provided to astronauts who are operating outside space vehicles. (Other unusual NASA history: A scientist "stole" a satellite from the agency in 1983—and is ready to give it back.)