What's your problem? That the USA has a space program? That astronauts have to use the toilet, just like ordinary people? Or that you're buying a Russian system rather than spending even more money designing one of your own?
What's your problem? That the USA has a space program? That astronauts have to use the toilet, just like ordinary people? Or that you're buying a Russian system rather than spending even more money designing one of your own?
Well you old fart from down under. If you don't know what the problem is i know you won't understand my explanation so i will not give one.
I spent three weeks in your backward country while in the military in 1967 and if things haven't improved i feel sorry for you. TV was not available to watch but six hours a day,the beer joints closed at 4pm for four hours,i ate at a restaurant and when i finished i asked for dessert and the waitress said "oh you have to go down the street to get that". What a backward bunch of hicks.
For 25 years the space program has done well without a 19 million dollar toilet. Where is the justification for the astronomical cost? I do not oppose the space program,but these unreasonable expenditures I do oppose. 19 million dollars would buy a lot of depends. Now I will be looking forward to the response from some that will tell me how stupid I am,have at it. If it makes you feel good
Microsoft Windows XP Home IE Explorer 7.0 2800 1106 330 Intel Celeron Processor 2.66 GHz 256K L2 Cache 533Mhz FSB-60 GB HD
Talk about the ugly American! When you sober up you will regret making a fool of yourself. Three weeks hanging around bars made you an expert on a country almost the physical size of the US?
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - In space, a loo costs a lot.
NASA has agreed to pay $19 million for a Russian-built toilet system for the international space station. The figure may sound astronomical for a toilet in space, but NASA officials said it was cheaper than building their own.
"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.
The new system is scheduled to be delivered to the U.S. side of the space station in 2008. It will offer more privacy than the old toilet system, which will definitely be needed: The space station crew is expected to grow from three to six people by 2009.
The system will be installed on the American side, and the current toilet system on the Russian side will remain in place.
The space station toilet physically resembles those used on Earth, except it has leg restraints and thigh bars to keep astronauts and cosmonauts in place. Fans suck waste into the commode. Crew members also have individual urine funnels which are attached to hoses, and the urine is deposited into a wastewater tank.
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.
NASA's budget is stretched extremely thin. I would think that by now they are about as good as Wal-Mart at making a dollar stretch. Master accountants, I'm sure they are.
You nor I even compare to the pH D's of NASA, if that's how much it costs, then I'm sure they did everything they can to get the cheapest price for what they need.
Now taxpayers paying for this is a different story, NASA's long overdue for privatization.
