From space rescues to space toilets
Staff writer
Astronaut Nick Hague, who attended school in Peabody, spoke to Peabody-Burns High School students Tuesday about his trip to rescue astronauts stranded on the space station last year.
He also answered practical questions like how do you use a bathroom in space.
Hague flew with Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to rescue astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station.
The space station is a research laboratory 250 miles above the Earth that circles the globe every 90 minutes.
“They needed to have a safe way to come home,” Hague said.
“The way we decided that the best way to make sure the mission of research continues was to have them become part of my crew. The station research mission has to continue because they’re trying to answer questions to benefit everybody.”
Hauge said NASA was working to launch a 10-day mission around the moon early next year.
“Why we’re going to the moon is to figure out how to work and live on another planetary surface, someplace that’s close so if there’s problems, we can come to the rescue,” Hague said. “But the next step is to go to Mars.”
He told students they were of an age that they could be the first to go to Mars.
One student asked how people use the toilet in space.
“Everything floats,” Hague said. “You saw the food floating around the table? So imagine going to the toilet. You go into the restroom and look at the toilet. There’s water inside the toilet. So how do you keep the water in the toilet? Anything you put into the toilet, it’s also going to float.
“How do I control things? I have to control them by controlling the air that they’re floating in. I use suction. I use fans to pull the air into the toilet. Imagine you keep the water in the toilet, and you hit the vacuum at the back of the toilet. And now it sucks everything in and now you just use the toilet and collect the stuff because it’s nasty stuff, and put it in the trash and load it into a cargo vehicle.”
Not all is hauled away, however, Even urine is purified and recycled for use on the space station, he said.
He went through other questions: “Was the moon landing real?” “Is the food good?” “Is the Earth round?” “How does it feel like to be in space for the first time?”
Being in space is a lot like floating in a pool, he said.
“The hardest part is returning,” Hague said. “That’s when all the hard work starts.”