Well, it kinda is.
The other day, for no particular reason, I was ruminating on the strange case of Lisa Nowak who gained, ummm, attention back in 2007 with her alleged attempt to remove a rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut.
One of the more outre details of the story was that, in order to facilitate a marathon car trip from Texas to Florida, Captain Nowak allegedly wore special diapers that are apparently issued to Space Shuttle astronauts so she wouldn’t have to use the restrooms when she made whatever refueling stops were necessary along the way (I understand that she has denied actually using the diapers on her excursion).
My question, though is this: Are astronauts given any specific training in using these [del]garments[/del] [del]accessories[/del] items? Are they required to demonstrate proficiency in their use, removal, and disposal?
not sure but Alan Shepard was stuck in his suit longer than expected and had to pee but they had not planned for that. So they told him just to go in his suit and hoped it would be OK and they had no problems.
Are you sure they were NASA-issue diapers? Or did she just go to the store and buy Depends?
Not sure about the diapers, but I know t he astronauts are trained intensively on using the toilet. They showed it in a Bill Nye-narrated documentary about one of the shuttle missions. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to find now for unknown reasons.
an educational and fun-loving book about astronauts,their food, their toilets and everything related is"Packing for Mars: the curious science of life in Space" by Mary Roach. She writes about the human side of science–the very human side, in this case.
She spent a couple years interviewing the people behind the scenes, and created a good, enjoyable, and educational book
Some info from the book:
The toilet on the space shuttle is amazingly complicated. She was invited to practice using the “positional trainer” (A mock-up of the toilet with a video camera in the bowl, connected to a computer screen you watch, so astronauts can practice how to sit with your anus PRECISELY centered over the air-vaccuum apparatus.
Also, in case you didn’t already know (and I’m sure you desperately need this information):
—the only reason your shit separates from your body is that gravity pulls it down till its own weight causes it to fall into the toilet.
In space, the exact opposite happens: turds curl upwards, and don’t detach from the body. So the astronaut has to reach around and pinch his or her turd till it breaks off. And the curling tends to clog the air vents which are supposed to vacuum it away. If this happens, the astronaut responsible for the clogging is expected to clean the vents himself.
There’s a lot more in the book: vomiting in zero-gravity, sneezing inside helmets,masturbating chimpanzees (from the earliest space flights, before manned rockets).
A fun read, and a lot of interesting info about food in space, astronaut training and human foibles.
For fun, I just wanted to point out that Ben Folds talks about this in his song “Cologne”:
Says here an astronaut put on a pair of diapers
Drove eighteen hours to kill her boyfriend
And in my hotel room I’m wondering
If you read that story too and if we both
Might be having the same imaginary conversation
I second the endorsement of “Packing for Mars.” It addresses diapers in several places but gives no indication that astronauts need in special training in their use. Frankly, I don’t see what they would train you to do or how you would demonstrate proficiency. But the chief lesson of “Packing for Mars” is that lots of things that seem simple are extraordinarily complex in space.
One other thing, Roach’s book says NASA uses off-the-shelf diapers, not some high-tech, specially designed version.