Sometime in the near future, if they can get their problems sorted out, the seven astronauts of the shuttle Discovery will be docking with the International Space Station (ISI), where they will join two Russians currently hanging out there. The shuttle has ample supplies of food, drink, and oxygen for the party of nine, but they are a little short on one giant need of mankind: loo capacity.

"There can be problems with the lavatory, the resources of which are not neverending," warns Itar Tass of the Russian Space Flights Control Centre. He sounds like he knows of what he speaks -- note the apt anagram of his name, which requires only changing the letter spacing: I Tart Ass.

Like me, you may have assumed that the ISI was just a massive orbiting toilet that shot its shit into space. But it turns out that space turds are compacted, dehydrated, and stored for later removal. Imagine being aboard when problems develop with this system:

ISI: "Houston. We have a problem?"
Houston: "Copy."
ISI: "You know, THE problem."
Houston: "Code Brown?"
ISI: "That's one big Roger."
Houston: "And?"
ISI: "And we can't find the coat hanger. Can you tell us again where you put that? And for the record, it wasn't me. It was that fucking pig Sergei."



Photo of the International Space Station toilet from urinal.net. See also the toilet on Mir.