• Question: How do you excrete in space?

    Asked by Bambi to Jim on 10 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by Llama.
    • Photo: Jim Barrett

      Jim Barrett answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      So, excretion means getting rid of anything we don’t need, which includes breathing out Carbon Dioxode, which is handled by breathing modules in the space suit.

      However, I’m guessing you’re talking about pooping. I’m sure there are lots of clever ways of dealing with it now, but I know that in some of the earlier space missions they basically just had to hold a bag there and poo. Since gravity is actually pretty helpful for pooping (you wouldn’t want to poop upwards!), they used to have a ‘finger tube’ built into the bag so they could help things along haha

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