Image: Space station toilet
The international space station’s zero-gravity toilet relies on suction for operation. In this picture of the compartment, the toilet seat is at lower right.
updated 7/5/2007 10:56:03 PM ET 2007-07-06T02:56:03

In space, a loo costs a lot.


“It’s akin to building a municipal treatment center on Earth,” NASA spokeswoman Lynnette Madison said Thursday, explaining the cost of the new toilet system.

Also, astronauts are familiar with how it works since it’s similar to one already in use at the space station. The new system will be able to transfer urine to a device that can produce drinking water.




Crew members using the current toilet system on the Russian side must transfer tanks of their urine to a cargo ship, which burns up in Earth’s atmosphere once undocked from the station.

The $19 million toilet system was part of a larger contract valued at $46 million that NASA signed this week with RSC Energia, a Russian aerospace company. The extra equipment includes software updates for the station’s inventory management system, a spare air pump and engineering support for a mechanism which allows space shuttles to dock with the space station.



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