How do astronauts go to the bathroom when they are in the space shuttle or in space??
The arrangments for toilet facilities in space have developed quite a bit over the years. One thing they do have in common, though, is a diet that is specially devised to produce very little solid waste. In the early Project Mercury flights the astronaut was only up for a few hours. Generally on those flights urination was the only concern, and they had a special bag that strapped around their waist and down one leg into which they could urinate. The bag would then be sealed and detahced when they got back to Earth (and very probably some of it would be taken off for testing in a lab!). For Project Gemini and Project Apollo the facilities were a little better. For launch the astronauts still wore a urine collection device inside their spacesuits. Later in the flight they had two systems for dealing with waste. For urination they had a hose with a condom-like attachment they could roll over the penis and effectively pee straight into space. For solid waste things were a bit less pleasan
