Part of The Bird on Fire’s What’s in the News

By 7th-Grade Blogger Mark Huber

Did you hear about that new space mission that was like all over the news? Well, the most recent mission was the Artemis II mission. And, if you heard about the Artemis II mission, you likely heard that the onboard toilet had some major issues.

According to Artemis II Flight Director Judd Freiling, the main issue had to do with “dumping the waste out of the toilet” (CNN). And, the cause of the issue was a frozen vent line–clogged up with frozen pee. I know it sounds sort of silly, but the toilet is an everyday thing we take for granted. Without it, you would be taking dumps behind the bushes outside your house and people would walk by and get really good views of your butt. But, in space, there are no bushes.

So, what I mean to say is the malfunctioning toilet was a big problem. While the pee-ejection vent was clogged up with frozen pee, the crew had to do their urinating in bags. At least they could just toss the bags out into the distant void of space, says Space.com. Still, not very fun. But, fortunately, the whole crew made it back down to Earth completely fine. (And also probably feeling super happy that they could now sit down on a toilet and urinate there instead of into bags.)

P.S. I also used the BBC as one of my sources. Now they tell me I have to pay (real!) money to subscribe so I can keep reading stuff on their website. Whatever.