The troublesome toilet aboard the International Space Station appears to be working again, thanks to a replacement pump taken to the station by the shuttle Discovery.

“The toilet appears to have been repaired,” said Rob Navias, the commentator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s video channel on the Web, NASA TV (www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/).

The single toilet aboard the station has separate systems for dealing with solid and liquid waste, and the systems are designed to work without the help of gravity.

The solid waste system was operating properly, but the liquid system, which uses air flow to direct urine and store it in a receptacle, began malfunctioning more than a week before the shuttle’s arrival on Monday. A pump that separates urine from air and directs the urine into a tank failed; two spare pumps aboard the station were installed and failed as well.

To deal with the malfunctioning high-tech toilet while answering the call of nature, the two Russian cosmonauts and American astronaut who are living aboard the station had to go through a work-around procedure that took a great deal of time and wasted water. Oleg Kononenko, the cosmonaut who did the repair work, replaced the pump with the one delivered by the shuttle and tested the urine collection system.

NASA, anticipating that the fix might not work, had sent up enough backup urine collection devices so that the crew would be able to remain aboard the station until the next resupply ship arrives in September.

The alternate methods of waste disposal, including plastic bags with adhesive and bactericide known as “Apollo bags,” because they were used by early astronauts, are not “particularly pleasant,” Kirk Shireman, the head of the station program, said on Tuesday in a media briefing. They are, however, “tried and true devices for their intended purposes.”

A wee problem for ISS crew

NASA says it is having problems with a new system on the International Space Station that is designed to convert urine into drinking water.

Among a whole set of home improvements being carried out on the space station this week, the installation of a urine recycling system has been the one to attract the most attention.

Now, two tests of the 160 million pound machine have failed because of problems with the distillation process.

NASA needs the system to work to provide enough drinking water for when the station's crew is expanded from three to six astronauts next year.

A spokesman said their number one priority was to get a sample of recycled water back to earth for testing.

see toon at top...

for the sceptics out-there who may have not regarded the items and toon above as relevant to "democracy", here is the punch-line:

LONDON: It was supposed to be the final frontier, where the petty jealousies of Earth and other planetary concerns were left behind. But space is not the haven of international harmony it used to be.

Once upon a time astronauts on the international space station shared resources - food, equipment, facilities. But now a veteran Russian cosmonaut has complained that he is not even allowed to use his US colleagues' exercise bike - or their toilet.

According to Gennady Padalka, commercial squabbles on Earth are compromising morale in space. For seven glorious years after his first space mission in 1998 Colonel Padalka said he and his US astronauts had co-operated brilliantly. This changed in 2005 when missions were put on a commercial footing and Moscow started billing the US for sending its astronauts into orbit.

Colonel Padalka told the newspaper Novaya Gazeta that officials had rejected his request to work out on the US exercise bike during their pre-training mission. Worse than that, they said US and Russian crew members should use their own "national toilets", the Russian crew being banned from using the luxurious US astro-loo.

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Men in space can't pee standing up... Ha ha...

Space tourist and circus entrepreneur Guy Laliberte has begun his journey to orbit.

The Canadian billionaire was aboard the Soyuz craft which blasted off to the International Space Station (ISS).

Mr Laliberte, who founded the Cirque do Soleil theatre company in the 1980s, reportedly paid $35m for his ticket.

He says he will make the ISS astronauts laugh during his 12-day stay, and produce a web event that highlights the issue of clean water for all.

He was accompanied in the Soyuz TM-16 spacecraft by Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev and US astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - None of the toilets at the International Space Station (ISS) are working, astronauts have to use "diapers", a NASA translation suggested Wednesday.

There are two toilets at the ISS, both Russian-made — one in the US module and another one in the Russian one.

In addition, there are toilets in Soyuz ships docked at the station but they are used when the ship is in flight and only rarely when it is docked.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201911271077416244-all-toilets-at-iss-brea...

Read from top.

Nasa is to launch a new zero-gravity toilet for testing at the International Space Station (ISS) before its probable use in a future mission to the Moon.

The $23m (£17.8m) toilet, which sucks waste from the body, will be sent to the station on a cargo ship.

Nasa said the toilet's "vacuum system" was designed for the comfort of female astronauts, unlike previous models.

A rocket carrying the cargo ship was supposed to blast off from Wallops Island, Virginia, on Thursday.

But the mission was aborted less than three minutes before lift off because of technical difficulties.

Another launch attempt is due on Friday evening if engineers can fix the issues that caused Thursday's delay.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54387288

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Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion and universal gravitation form the core of modern physics, which is as apolitical a subject as one can imagine. However, the faculty of engineering at Sheffield University wants students to understand the “global origins and historical context” of his theories, and that he may have benefited from “colonial-era activity.”

That’s according to leaked university documents seen by the Telegraph last week. The documents set out a plan to “challenge long-standing conscious and unconscious biases” among students, and to rethink “Eurocentric” and “white saviour” approaches to science and promote “inclusive design.”

Newton’s discoveries are not controversial, yet if the documents are to be understood correctly, the fact that they were made during a time of European colonialism makes them suspect. The “historical context” that should be added to lessons is left unexplained, and it is not clear how Newton may have benefited from “colonial-era activity.”

Yet Newton isn’t the only thinker being re-examined by the university. Pioneering scientists like Paul Dirac, Pierre-Simon Laplace and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz are all up for review.

‘Decolonization’ is a hot term among social justice-minded academics. Put simply it involves rethinking the notion that Western science, philosophy, and knowledge in general are superior to theories from the non-Western world, and contribute to the “oppression” of this world.

It’s been applied to history and political science, and invoked to topple statues of famous figures considered offensive to modern tastes. However, it’s also been applied to some unlikely subjects. Academics have argued that classical music, mathematics and ecology are all ripe for “decolonization,” on account of their domination by the white West.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/uk/522155-isaac-newton-colonial-racist/

May as well close the books, burn the universities down and become Muslims, while hanging each other whitey in shame. I know. I will marry a penguin in a colourful ceremony on Guano Island, according to the rites of the Bald Eagle, before he became the emblem of white supremacist Yamerika. Then we can all eat dead jellyfish to the sound of Wrap Moosik.

No disrespect: Gus is happy to have been born a white male and to have fought many battles against idiocy, ignorance, voodoos and religious pricks... 

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Free Julian Assange Now !!!!!!!!!!!!!!