I told you to go before we left the planet

by lestro

Houston, we have a problem.

Four words you don’t want to hear in space:

“The toilet is broken.”

Space is a long way to try and hold it. Try sitting on the edge of the capsule and crossing your legs.

Russian mission control told the crew — Russian Cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, and Garrett Reisman, a NASA astronaut, to use the toilet on the Soyuz capsule that is attached to the station as a lifeboat. But that system has very limited capacity, and so repairing the system has become an increasingly urgent issue.

“Increasingly urgent.” I like that.

I know when my toilet is busted or the water in my building is turned off for repairs, things can get a bit, um, difficult for me, but at least I am not 217 miles away from the closest toilet. Or tree.