Riding Rockets

The CAPCOM went on to explain there was enough remaining volume in the waste-water tank for about three man-days of urine. It was obvious to us what they were thinking: Judy would be able to use the urinal for the rest of the mission. We men could get by with the bags. All of us thought this was fair enough, but Judy saw a feminist trap. If she used the urinal while we men were stuck with the bags, word would eventually get around. It would be another damning sin against the feminist cause. In fact it would be a far more egregious sin than the hair-jam incident. Her use of the urinal would be a shout from the rooftops that a peniswas necessary to deal with certain shuttle emergencies. Judy wasn’t going to fall into the trap. She elected to use the Apollo bags like the rest of us.

I have no idea how Judy managed with the bags but I’m sure she paid a messy price for her feminist stand. It was a mess even for us males. On my first attempt, I just held the bag around myself and let fly. Bad idea. The urine splashed into the bottom of the bag and bounced right back, soaking my crotch. Not only that, some fluid escaped and I became the proverbial one-armed paperhanger, trying to hold the bag at my crotch and blot the little yellow planets out of the sky with a tissue in my free hand. Others made similar rookie mistakes. But we quickly came up with a solution. We stuffed washcloths in the bottom of the bags. In weightlessness the “wicking” action of cloth was still effective. We could aim our stream onto the cloth and the fluid would be wicked away instead of splashing around. There was just one catch: If we urinated too fast, the wicking action couldn’t keep up with the stream and splashing would result. If we slowed our stream too much, the fluid wouldn’t separate from us and a large ball of urine would grow on our penises. We learned it was necessary to very precisely regulate our urine flow to achieve a stream of perfect balance. Even then, there would always be a significant “last drop” that had to be wiped away with a tissue.

Our greatest challenge occurred when we had bowel movements. It was virtually impossible to regulate urine flow while bearing down for a BM. On the second day of our toilet purgatory, I heard another Hank Hartsfield cheer rise from the toilet. “I did it! I did it!”

Since Cuba wasn’t at our nadir, I couldn’t imagine the source of Hank’s glee. “What did you do, Hank?”

“I took a shit without pissing!”

From the look on Hank’s face you would have thought his earlier turd had reentered the atmosphere and nailed Castro right between the eyes. But I could appreciate his joy. Turning off one’s urine while having a BM was a real trick. The things they didn’t teach us at astronaut school.

As our washcloths were consumed we turned to using our socks. When I had exhausted my extras, I began to use my towels. On one occasion with my bladder near rupture, I threw a covetous glance at the clean socks Judy was wearing. I flew straight at her and began to rip them from her feet. She knew exactly what I was doing and jokingly screamed, “Help! I’m being socked!”

By the final day of the mission our wet-trash container was becoming seriously overburdened. Under us floated a volume of vomit, urine, and decomposing food containers. My earlierStar Wars prank about alien creatures living in the trash container didn’t seem so funny now. Nobody wanted to put their hands in the mess. We would jam our urine bags past the grommet, jerk away, and quickly rip into an alcohol hand wipe.

As we configuredDiscovery for our last sleep period, I repeated my day-one routine. I moved my sleep restraint upstairs and tied it beneath the overhead windows. I intended to stay awake as long as possible to stuff my brain with space memories. While I had every intention of making this trip again, I couldn’t be sure there would ever be a second opportunity.Discovery ’s engine problem had delayed the program by two months. What other problems were lurking? Could one result in a program delay of years, or even total program cancellation? Even if the shuttles continued to fly on schedule, office politics could end my career. It was impossible to know where you stood with Abbey. He might never assign me to another mission. I was going to assume these would be my last hours in space and I wasn’t going to waste them sleeping.