Astronauts Got No Place to Pee

I refuse to drop the familiar phrase when NASA runs into an orbital snafu, but there is a problem on board the International Space Station ("ISS").

A plugged toilet is the current issue plaguing the ISS inhabitants. Yes, the only toilet on board the ISS, aside from the one inside the Soyuz escape module (which only has 3 days of waste capacity with a full three-person ISS crew). The ISS needs spare parts pronto, luckily, if they can determine the root of the stoppage, NASA could get parts loaded onto Discovery which is currently sitting at the launch pad.

As you may have guessed, these toilets aren't found at Home Depot, they are high-tech toilets of the space world with zero grav. The toilets are driven by air flow (vacuum) to transport the poo away from a crew member's body into a sanitary storage receptacle. Back in the Apollo days, there wasn't even the vacuum driven toilets, rather they used bags with sticky openings to seal the poo inside. Believe it or not, history has been saving the current ISS crew as they have dipped into their emergency supply of Apollo era ziplock bags.

There seems to be an intermittent problem with air/water separator...a fabrication flaw of the toilet's original compressor unit (and a backup unit!). The toilet has been returned to service several times over the past several days only to be then taken back out of service shortly after NASA or the Russians thought they had 'er working. One (yes, anonymous) source in Houston said that the hardware used there for crew training may be flown to Florida for launch aboard Discovery, even though it too is expected to fail quickly after installation. A new toilet device, developed to accommodate a six person crew as opposed to the current three, was already planned for delivery later in 2008. It apparently can't come soon enough as NASA is expecting to rely on the ever-faulting current toilet compressor and the Apollo poo bags until that time.

This may not seem to be an Apollo 13-esque emergency, however, no doubt NASA and the Russians will contrive some goofy fix all held together with duct tape.

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Sukhoi Su-27 on the side of the Superjet 100

Check out this proposed livery on a Superjet 100. This livery was proposed at the Russian Industrial Design Bureau Astra Rossa and was quickly rejected due to its military motif and overtones. Regardless, I'm assuming the Sukhoi's silhouette is the 1:1 scale and if that is the case, that's one large fighter jet. I knew it was bigger than the F-15, but wow.

The Superjet is nearly 30 meters long and the Su-27 is 22 meters long -- looks about right to me. Maybe Southwest Airlines should propose a new livery for a couple of their 737s with an F-15 silhouette on the sides.

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The Superjet 100 Flies

For the first time ever, the Russians have flown their Superjet 100. We first brought you the Superjet news on April 30 and the Russians were true to their word about a first flight in May. The above picture was taken on its approach after the 40 minute test flight. See PointNiner's previous post on this aircraft here. The unfortunate, yet almost expected news coming after the delayed first flight was an official delay in delivery. Don't act so surprised.

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Russians to Fly Superjet 100 in May

You say what is so exciting about the Russians flying a new plane? Well it just happens to be Sukhoi's Superjet 100, the fruit of almost a decade of efforts by Russia's largest warplane maker -- with big hopes to re-enter the global market for commercial aircraft (fat chance). According to Reuters, the Russians will perform the long-delayed test flight in the first half of May.

The Superjet 100 is designed to seat 75-95 passengers. The flight was originally scheduled to take place in late 2007, but was moved to 2008 for unknown communist reasons.

Also, see the comparison photo of the Boeing 787 to the Superjet 100 -- and in my opinion there really is no comparison...but interesting nonetheless.


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NASA Urges Caution Amid Soyuz Reports

In a nice politically correct move, NASA cautioned against speculation ahead of the facts after a the Russians reported the three crew members aboard Soyuz TMA-11 were in grave danger when it re-entered the atmosphere on April 19.

Reportedly, the Soyuz vehicle entered the atmosphere facing the wrong direction and suffered severe heat damage to its hatch. In a post-landing press conference, one astronaut said she was frightened by the heating glow she could see out the window. No big deal, just facing the wrong direction as you re-enter the unforgiving atmosphere. Some unnamed Russian sources said that the crew was lucky they survived. Further, the crew is suspected of experiencing over 8Gs of force due to the Soyuz capsule's ballistic trajectory, when the normal max force is 5Gs.

A similar problem occurred on TMA-10 flight, but when that capsule re-entered, the TMA-11 was already docked at the International Space Station, so nothing could be done other than to determine what caused the TMA-10 malfunction and have the crew check it out on the TMA-11 capsule. It was suspected that the TMA-10 capsule had a control cable problem.

But according to NASA, we should not believe those Russians. I suppose they would like us to not believe Russia took out that Georgian UAV too.

In the pictures: top picture is of the Soyuz TMA-11 capsule on its side after re-entry; second one is a photo of the TMA-11 capsule parachuting in after its rough re-entry; bottom one is the spent TMA-10 capsule.


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UAV Films Own Demise as Russian MiG Shoots it Down

In this video a Russian MiG-29 fighter aircraft shows up, squeezes off an little air-to-air missle and blows a Georgian UAV out of the sky... on camera.

So we have a Russian MiG taking out a ex-Soviet Georgian unarmed UAV that was doing basic surveillance over Georgian soil (according to the Georgians). Whether that is true or not, I would imagine the political fallout over this incident could get ugly. Seems that there is a bit of unrest over there to begin with. But we can give a big thanks to the Russians and Georgians for this nice video.

Oh, and the Russian's response: "Nonsense. What would a Russian jet be doing over Georgian territory?"

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