When You Gotta Go...

Even astronauts have to take breaks to go to the bathroom, but unlike those of us on a long road trip, there’s no stopping at a gas station in orbit or on the way to the Moon. As America’s space program progressed, so too did the technology for keeping astronauts comfortable and their bladders empty in space.

The Urine Collection System

The first urine containment was cobbled together as an afterthought to give Gus Grissom a safe way to urinate during his suborbital Mercury mission: a condom fixed to a garter belt would let him relieve himself without wetting his suit. A more sophisticated version of this same basic system became a staple on Apollo and shuttle missions; the UCD displayed here is a shuttle era artifact. Astronauts would urinate through a tube into a bag then either dump the urine overboard or carry it back to Earth for analysis. Of course, different situations like extravehicular activity demand a different kind of urine collection systems.