Peter called me from the road when he was off doing some soccer thing or other, and was laughing when he told me that the toilet on the ISS (International Space Station) was broken, and that they had to fly in someone special to fix it.
Which, of course, led me to all kinds of suppositions.
So I did a little research and followed the story. As in, THIS, I gotta see.
First, how did the toilet break? Well, it seems that there was an astronaut using the facility. There’s a fan that pulls liquid waste away from the body and into a liquid waste receptacle. Apparently the fan broke while in use.
So you’re the astronaut, and you’re sitting there, stripped of your one-piece suit, naked, with your feet strapped in so you don’t float away (maybe you’d be jet-propelled into the ceiling for some reason when you sat down), and instead of your waste being pulled away by the fan, the fan stops. . . and then what?
Anti-gravity and a bum wash is what happens. But here’s the question. If you’re the astronaut sitting naked, and your bum is the only thing keeping the liquid IN the toilet, who do you call to say there’s a problem, and how do you get off the toilet?
Did the guy get up and run? Duck and cover while his waste hit the ceiling? Run like mad (in anti-gravity slow-mo) and scream “GET THE PLUMBER!” as he slammed the bathroom door behind him? Was he able to get his suit back on before it all hit the fan (so to speak)?
The ISS toilet is a 19 million dollar piece of equipment. If it cost 19 million to build it and install it, what in the heck is the plumbers fee going to be, and who on Earth (literally) do they call?
Down at Ground Control, Russia has been contacted to supply the parts, and the Space Shuttle Discovery is taking the parts and necessary personnel to fix the toilet.
So there are eleven plumbers in Carleton Place. I wonder what they would charge if someone called and said they needed a space toilet fixed? Would it be like the Bruce Willis movie, Armageddon, when they had to destroy the asteroid or else all would be doomed?
Would Bruce Willis the plumber go in while his daughter watched with teary eyed fear from Earth as he braved what is sure to be a wet storm of biohazard waste? Would the world watch in anticipation, hoping against hope that the pee storm would end?
And while the pump is replaced, will Bruce the plumber die while becoming an international hero at the same time?
Okay, probably not. The truth is that the astronauts managed to bypass the problem until the world’s most expensive plumber arrives on the Discovery. Good thing the Discovery has its own toilet.
As Peter said,” I hope the Space Station doesn’t fly over Carleton Place anytime soon.”
