Personal Space Toilet

Personal Space Toilet

A personal space toilet designed for male use. It dates from the 1960s and was designed for use in the Orbital Module of a Soyuz spacecraft. A modified version of this unit is still used on board the Soyuz spacecraft by astronauts and cosmonauts as they are ferried to the International Space Station.

Going to the lavatory in space is complicated. Both the American and Soviet space programmes have struggled with the challenge of using the toilet in a weightless environment. Gravity does not offer the usual assistance we have here on Earth, so material from bodily functions can float around - causing significant danger. Modern space toilets use a vacuum system to suck liquid and solid waste away from the body. The Soviets developed a way of doing this manually earlier than the Americans, and this device is one of the earliest versions of space toilets.

Commonly referred to as an ASU (Assenizatsionno-Sanitarnaya Ustanovka), translating to ‘Sanitary Sewage Disposal Installation’, this device works by creating a suction flow of air that draws urine and faecal waste into it. Cosmonauts used this type of toilet in the larger Orbital Module of the Soyuz spacecraft, directing their urine into the yellow funnel device at the top of the hose. The urine was then stored and could be vented into space. Modern systems now recycle urine, converting it back into drinkable water.

Solid waste cannot be recycled and is normally stored before being jettisoned into the Earth’s atmosphere where it is burnt up. The ASU has a handle that would allow the cosmonaut to hold the unit in place, whilst using the metal collection cup for their solid waste. A filter bag was inserted, with suction pulling air through the bag and ensuring the faecal matter stayed inside. The filter bag had a quick closing rubber shutter to seal it off before it could then be compressed and stored ready for disposal at a later stage.