>>19903
>>19990
I'm gonna guess that's the ISS and they're stocking up. It bears some resemblence to the shuttle's middeck, but doesn't look quite like it as far as I can tell, and the shuttle would probably never need that many diapers in one mission.
Though, I did hear once the space shuttle toilet failed and they had to resort to using socks (socks in bags?) as toilets. I wonder if after that they started taking a lot more diapers as a better emergency back-up than socks... They wouldn't be any better than poop bags for #2, but they would be way, way better than socks for urine.
Anyways, this thread is a good occasion for me to splerge on diapers in space. Or at least for NASA. I don't think anyone knows the story of how the USSR handled it. But anyways, for NASA diapers...
So it started with the May 5th launch of the first American in space in 1961. Freedom 7 of the Mercury program. See, it was only a 15-minute flight, and the plan was for Shepherd to get in the tiny capsule and launch and be recovered well within the time someone can hold their urine. However, the ground crew was extremely careful/nervous about the first launch of an American into space, and kept delaying it for clouds, minor hiccups, etc, for 4 hours.
Now, see attached image 1 - that's a Shuttle-era spacesuit, but the launch sitting position is the same. It's great for enduring g-forces, but blood from the legs pools down to the torso, basically forcing the kidneys into overdrive. Plus launch-day nerves, and another hour or three since he'd last been able to use the bathroom, it was simply beyond what man can endure.
(Stepping forward to the early shuttle era for a moment, apparently a lot of astronauts tried to beat it by dehydrating themselves - even getting in a hot tub the night before to aid the dehydration and not drinking anything until after launch - but nothing worked, they still ended up peeing. Sitting on your back for 2+ hours is just apparently that compelling to your kidneys. And obviously, NASA was not happy with astronauts dehydrating themselves, since hydration effects your thinking and health, and that practice is banned. Now back to Mercury/1961 -)
By the next launch in June of 1961, provisions had been made.
Enter: the UCD. The Urine Collection Device. It was basically a condom-like sheath with a one-way valve at the end that exits into a tube that goes into a bag. Attached image 2.
Once in orbit, though, you can take off all that stuff and use a funnel-hose assembly to urinate. From Gemini (Mercury flights were too short to need provisions for #2) to Apollo, you had to poop in a plastic bag. It was not great.
As for the UCD worn with the spacesuits, I don't know much about it in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo eras, other than it was worn under spacesuits for that time, but one astronaut from the early Shuttle era said that it was worn along with a very thick pair of underwear that acted as a diaper to catch leaks since it wasn't perfect.
You're lying on your back, peeing sideways into this thing that's only hopefully centered. Shifting in your seat could cause the valve to be pushed open, causing urine to come back out. And it may slip off entirely, which was not unknown.
Also apparently astronauts had a habit of picking one too large for them just to boast about needing a large size. So NASA changed the naming convention from "S/M/L" to "Large/XL/humongous" - I can't verify this paragraph but I've heard it before.
Spacesuits were worn for launch, EVAs, and landing, and any time a spacesuit is worn, so is the UCD.
Now we enter the shuttle era. For a while, they continued using UCDs, but now, for fecal waste - see attached image #4 - they had a toilet in space, finally. Using suction, the hole had to be small so there could be a seal, and it required some aiming. But way better than bags in microgravity.
But back to urine, into the 80s, with women going to space, obviously they couldn't use UCDs since those attached with a condom-like sheath. All attempts to engineer a sort of equivalent funnel were fruitless. Ultimately they just had to use essentially a disposable diaper, with a gelled suspension layer. This first one was called a DACT - Disposable Absorption Containment Trunk - attached image 3. This was first flown in 1983.
Remember all those issues I mentioned with UCDs? The leaks and popping off and all that? Well, women never had those issues with the DACT. And eventually, the more advanced and unisex MAG was made - Maximum Absorbency Garment. See attached image 5. By 1988 the MAG replaced the DACT. The MAG is essentially a disposable diaper. Legend has it that it's a pull-up with 2 L of capacity. And by the 90s, the MAG had fully replaced the UCDs of old.
MAGs were first something NASA made. But to quote the wikipedia article on MAGs:
>In the 1990s, NASA ordered 3,200 of the diapers of the brand name Absorbencies, manufactured by a company that has folded. In 2007, about a third of the supply remained.
During shuttle missions, everyone was given 3 MAGs - one for launch, one for re-entry, and another for if the first re-entry attempt was aborted - and additional MAGs for any EVAs planned.
Now, I've covered why you need diapers on launch. Why you need diapers on EVAs should be self-evident, since they can last many hours. Also, astronauts tend to try to time their consumption of liquids such that they don't need to use the MAG on EVAs, but it's good for peace of mind, and I imagine sometimes that doesn't work. Now, re-entry.
Your body is made to keep fluids up - in your upper body, against gravity, to keep it from pooling in the lower parts of your body. When astronauts arrive in microgravity, then, they're a bit bloated in the upper body because the body's still pushing fluids up, but there's no longer gravity pulling them down.
After a few days, the body adjusts and stops doing that as much. This is called "fluid shift". A result of this, is that even if you're hydrated before you land, once the shuttle lands, since your body is no longer pushing fluids up to your upper body, the fluids drain out of your upper body and you can become so dehydrated that you faint. So it's somewhat dangerous.
To counteract this, NASA started making astronauts drink two liters - about a half gallon - of a salty water (with a bit of a lemon-lime taste) before re-entry.
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I imagine that that, with the g-forces of re-entry, along with muscle atrophy from days, weeks, or months in zero-g, make the diapers very much needed for re-entry.
Now, as to the MAG itself - I need one more pic so I'll go over that in another post...