Today, Explained - When nature calls in space

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Artemis II is a historic mission for a number of reasons, including the Orion capsule’s bathroom. This episode was produced by Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado and Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. NASA astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft's main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the Moon. Photo by NASA via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy Easter to all who celebrate. Let's see what the president had to say early Easter Sunday morning. Truth Social. Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch! Praise me to Allah, President Donald J. Trump!

Wow. I guess he was our first Muslim president all along. Let's see what message our astronauts up in space had for us this Easter. I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about, you know, all the cultures all around the world, whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing and that we've got to get through this together. Space seems like a nicer place to be right now, so we're going to talk about a historic day for the human race on Today Explained. Uh, where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now?

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People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Three, two, one, booster ignition. And it's today explained.

I'm Sean Ramos for I'm here with Lauren Grush, the global space reporter at Bloomberg. And Lauren, we have you here because today is a historic day for global space travel. I guess technically it's a historic day for humanity. What's happening in space today? You could say for universal space travel, it's a big day, right? There you go. Yes, today is pretty much the day we've all been waiting for when it comes to the Artemis II mission.

the crew of four astronauts on the mission will be making their closest approach to the moon as they fly by it. There is nothing normal about this. Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a Herkulean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of that. You know, we call amazing things

that humans do moonshots for a reason. They will be breaking records left and right, and they will be taking images and seeing with their own eyes, parts of the moon's far side that no humans have ever seen before. So it's a pretty exciting day for a space nerd like me. Let's talk about the records that are being broken left and right. Which are they? So as of the time of this recording, they haven't done it yet, but maybe by the time that you, the audience, listens, they will have surpassed the record for the farthest any human has

traveled into space. The previous record was set by Apollo 13 at a whopping 248,655 miles from Earth, and they will be passing that record to become the farthest traveled humans that have ever lived. We are not necessarily a crew that lives on superlatives, but it is a milestone that's important. And then the crew itself is a very special crew. In my opinion, Christina Koch will be the first woman to have reached the moon. For me, sleeping in space is one of the most comfortable ways to sleep. Victor Glover is the first black astronauts who have reached the moon. I can really see Earth as one thing.

And Jeremy Hanson is the first Canadian to do so. Allé to la Loon, Cervolet la Loon. So a pronde and grand a keep. And then on top of it all, they'll also get to see. an eclipse when they pass the moon. The sun will be passing behind the moon, and they'll get to study the sun's corona. Not a record, but certainly something very cool.

So it's just an exciting day for a number of reasons. Do people out there know all of this history is being made today? Do they care the way they might have cared 50 years ago with the Apollo missions? I think that maybe now there is definitely more awareness. I was a little struck leading up to this launch. I felt like maybe it hadn't really entered the public consciousness until maybe the day or two before. I think now with the imagery coming down

and the spectacular photos that are being taken from space of Earth and the moon, and then also just the really delightful and charming interviews with the crew. I really like it up here. I wish I could have got here sooner. And they really know just how to capture the world's attention and to inspire. Of course, NASA didn't spend billions of dollars to send these astronauts up to the moon for, like, good vibes. There is intent here and long-term planning going on.

For people who haven't yet heard, what is the mission here? Right. Yeah, we've had to remind folks that there's no landing on the moon during this mission. It's just a flyby. Fly me. 4,000 miles from. The way I like to describe it is that Artemis 2 is an elaborate dress rehearsal for the moon landing to come. Artemis 2 is one step in a larger goal to one day get back to the moon and land. Assuming this mission is a success, NASA is hoping to schedule that landing for 2028.

Artemis 4 will then attempt to touchdown on the moon in 28. along with a second possible landing. So the Artemis program is all about sending humans back to the moon, just like the predecessor Apollo program, but this time we don't want to just land flags and footprints. We want to stay. We want to learn how to set up a base on the moon and learn how to live sustainably

and what it takes to live off of the surface of another planet and then use those applications for potentially going and living on Earth. Mars someday. And how does that differ from like earlier moon missions? Well, the first moon missions, you know, for those who know their history, were all about beating the Soviet Union to be the first one to put humans on the surface of the moon. And that was a very effective motivator, right? It became a matter of national security. And it really informed exactly why we were going there, what we wanted to do when we got there. Now, with this mission, or with this program, the long-term goal is very much more about what can we learn about the moon and living

off the moon and how can we apply that to future missions down the road. Now, that said, I won't pretend like there isn't another international dominance component. Obviously, lawmakers have been invoking China a lot recently as to why we need to get back to the moon very quickly. China wants to go to the moon by 2030. And I'll tell you, if we wake up and turn on the TV and we see China on the moon, if they've beaten us to the moon, if they've seized the prime strategic real estate on the moon, I think that moment would be worse than Sputnik. Is part of what's different now as well that we want to like mind the moon? Yeah, you laugh, but it is part of it. So one of the reasons that the moon has become so attractive as a destination in the current era

is that in recent years, we have discovered that the moon is not so much this barren planet that we thought it was, and that in fact there are large quantities of what we think are water in the form of ice on the moon. And if that's the case, that opens up a lot of interesting possibilities, we are able to access that water. So for instance, a big one that is used a lot is mining that water and then breaking it apart into its components, hydrogen and oxygen, which are the components of rocket fuel, a propellant. And so that's why mining this water becomes really attractive, because then we could use that to fuel rockets off of the moon and then go deeper into space. And then there are other uses for it, too, such as,

you know, treating it to become drinking water or just water in general for a lunar base. There's all sorts of applications, but the rocket propellant is a big one. So is the United States winning this new space race against China in light of what we're accomplishing today? I can say that when it comes to landing, we still have quite a long way to go in order to get the technology that we need to put humans on the lunar surface. So NASA has tapped SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop lunar landers to take humans down to the surface. And both of those landers are quite complex. This week, SpaceX finally revealed their plans for America's next moon lander, the Starship HLS. Blue Origin was part of a group that initially proposed a design that had separate descent, assent, and transfer units.

Whichever company is ready first will be the one to do the landing. And so that kind of, now we have, not only do we have a space race between us and China, now we also have a little bit of a space race between rifles, SpaceX, and Blue Origin. Why not work together with China, you know, in the name of advancing, like, human space exploration? Have we just not gotten there yet where it's like, you know, in the name of humanity? We have not gotten there yet. There's also something called the Wolf Amendment that is used. a lot. It was passed in 2011, and that actually forbids us from cooperating with China.

Wow. Yes, exactly. Quite the opposite. Yes. It's definitely something I think a lot of people would like to see, but I think when it comes to just the ideals of both the United States and China, that's just not in the cards. This is all happening. All this history being made, all this moon business, while here on Earth, literally at this moment, there's like a fight over NASA's budget. Is that going to hold us back in any way? Yes. So the irony, of course, is that, you know, last week the president's budget request came out. They hope to slash the science budget by roughly one half. But at the same time, there would be this increase for the Artemis budget because they do seem very jazzed about sending people back to the moon.

So not just setting up America to return to the moon, but to build the infrastructure there, to build a moon base so that our astronauts can stay and pursue the scientific and economic opportunities on the lunar surface. The thing that I'm keeping tabs on, though, is that Congress pretty much rejected most of the cuts. that were proposed by the White House and did a good job of restoring most of NASA's budget. So I'm thinking that will probably happen again. Do you think the fact that all this history is being made and it all seems pretty positive for NASA will help? Absolutely.

I think you've just seen the joy that has come from the astronauts' faces and them seeing the moon and getting closer to the moon, you know, that is really palpable. And I can feel it when they're doing their interviews and talking to NASA's mission control. And I feel like I've noticing the world soaking that in as well. So I can only imagine that people will have a better understanding of what NASA is doing moving forward than they did before. My most excited thing is I will see for rocket launch into space because I'm so obsessed with space. We're going back to the fucking moon, that's why.

Lauren forgot to mention one other historic aspect of this Artemis II mission. It's the bathroom once we return from the break. Support for To Explain comes from Found. If you're a small business owner, you may know that wrestling with your finances can get messy. A bank account here, quickbooks there, taxes and invoicing apps. Before you know it, you're buried in expensive tools behind on books, unsure where your business really stands.

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We're just going to have to store it. Jack, got to need some more. Today explained. My name is K.R. Calloway, and I write for a scientific American. And we invited you here on the program today because you wrote about one specific element of this Artemis II mission that is in arguably historic. Tell us about it. Yeah.

So if you're going to do longer missions and eventually potentially, potentially, potentially, even have a base on the moon or go even further onto Mars, you first need to figure out what are you going to be doing for food, for water, and also for peeing and pooping on the spacecraft and on the surface. So this mission, Artemis II, is going to be the first time that a toilet is sent to the moon. This is definitely history making. So back in the 60s and 70s, We choose to go to the moon in this decay and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are off. Lift-off. We have a liftoff on Apollo 11.

Apollo 11 is a man's first attempt to go to the moon, to land there, and to return to Earth. One giant leap for manned. So Apollo used these bags. They had, you know, different ones for peeing, different ones for pooping, but it It was still essentially a bag that you would take onto your body and just go. It obviously didn't provide a lot of privacy. We aren't talking like going into a room with a door and doing this even. This was just done in the cabin and it was not super user friendly either.

In the absence of a system providing positive means for the removal of feces from the body, an extremely basic system had to be relied upon for in-flight fecal collection. The device used was a plastic bag which was taped to the buttocks to capture feces. After defecation, the crew member was required to seal the bag and knead it in order to mix a liquid bactericide with the contents to provide the desired degree of feces stabilization. They had a lot of issues with leaks. You know, it's just an adhesive. It can become unstuck and in low gravity that can be a big problem for particles escaping.

The principal problem with both the urine and feet. collection systems was the fact that these required more manipulation than crewmen were used to in the Earth environment and were, as a consequence, found to be objectionable. I had a lot of fun going through the Apollo mission transcripts and just looking at all of the ways the astronauts were describing this after use. They were pretty upset about it. During the Apollo 10 mission, that's one of the more notable ones. They said... Who did it?

Did what? What? Who did it? Give me a napkin quick. There's a turd floating. I didn't do it. Anywhere by. There's a turd floating through the air.

Wow. So they had to kind of wrangle that themselves. And even before that, they were having issues during Apollo 8. There was another pretty notable mission where a crew member was ill. And so the other crew members were chasing down these blobs of both vomit and feces that were just floating wild. through the cabin. And one of the astronauts you quote in your piece was Ken Mattingly, whose name people might be familiar with from the Apollo 13 mission and, of course, the Apollo 13 movie. Jack, give me a read back on that last procedure.

Stand by, Ken. This was actually one of my favorite quotes that I came across while I was going through the mission transcripts. This is something that Ken Mattingly said on Apollo 16, which is that I used to want to be. to be the first man to Mars. This has convinced me that if we got to go on Apollo, I am interested. As in this whole toilet situation is so insufferable, I maybe don't really want to spend too much time in space anymore. Exactly. So NASA, I imagine, after all the Apollo missions, realizes it needs to advance this technology. How does it do so? I spoke to Melissa McKinley over at NASA. She is the head of the Toilet Project.

This is the universal waste management system, is their kind of technical name, though I've been assured that just toilet is okay to say. And she mentioned that everything that's happened from the 60s and 70s to now has really been a feat of engineering and design. Go into the bathroom without the aid of gravity, without water to collect the waste. It's harder than you would think. So we use airflow to help entrain the waste into packaging to collect. it and help the crew member deposit the waste away from their bodies. They've been able to implement kind of a vacuum system that uses airflow to pull particles down instead of just having them float through space and relying on you to seal the bag yourself

and keep everything in. Help me picture what it looks like, because I'm guessing it does not look like any toilet in one of our homes. It definitely looks more like an airplane toilet, is how I would describe it. So the toilet has a seat and it has a funnel on the side for collecting urine and everyone gets their own separate piece to attach for the part that actually would touch your skin, luckily. Oh. For the toilet itself, it's pretty loud in there. We actually use a vacuum system. So imagine if you have a vacuum cleaner and you're sucking things down.

We turn on a big fan. and so that's pulling everything down into the toilet. All of this wild orange foam is actually taped over insulation because our toilet is a little bit on the loud side. Astronauts have to wear hearing protection, and they also have handles to hold on to because you're working in no gravity or low gravity, and yeah, you need a little bit of help to stay in the right position.

So these aren't plastic bags anymore. Where's this stuff going? Are we just shooting it out in the space? We are partially shooting it out into space. For urine, it is collected, and then it's going to be vented a couple of times. It's going to be kind of a controlled process, and so it will be just a lot of liquid at once. But, yeah, that is where the urine is going. And yet, all this testing, all this hype about this new toilet, and one of the first stories we get, once the assnots are, I think, up in Earth's orbit, is that something has gone wrong with the toilet.

What happened? So already the toilet has had a few issues. It's kind of the equivalent of a plumbing issue, but for space. Houston, we have a problem. A potty problem. Okay, Christina, we're ready for you to attempt reactivation of toilet by removing the urine hose. When they were trying to use it on one of the early days of the mission, they found that there was an error.

So the issue ended up being with the fan that helps to get the airflow. to help with the urine collection. So kind of a big problem. And luckily, with ground control support, one of the astronauts, Christina Cook, was actually able to fix this almost immediately after it had happened. I'm the space plumber. I'm proud to call myself the space plumber. I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board. Okay, the latest I heard over the weekend is that they had toilet trouble again. so maybe not the best plan to have your astronauts also be your plumbers.

What's the latest on this very expensive, very important toilet? Yeah, so it did seem to break again over the weekend. From what the NASA people were saying, it seems like it's kind of the same problem again with the urine collection system. The engineers have looked into it a little bit more deeply, and they think that it might be ice blocking the tube that would help fully collect the urine. Blame ice.

Yeah. Astronauts have reported issues with that system collection and then also a smell coming from the toilet area. So, yeah, definitely a problem that they say they're going to just keep working on. This whole toilet thing can feel sort of inconsequential considering what we're really doing up there in space, exploration, making history, trying to get to Mars one day, all the rest. But why is the toilet on the space shuttle important? So one of NASA's goals with this particular toilet is that it's a modular design, which means that they can put it not just in the Artemis II capsule, but they can also put it in a lot of different space vehicles. They could potentially even adapt it to be on a Mars mission and longer term missions. They can adapt it so that they can kind of do what the ISI. does in terms of liquid recycling and make longer-term more sustainable missions possible.

So even though it seems very mundane to us as just like something that you use every day, a toilet, for being in space, it's actually one of the key things that stands in the way of making space more home-like and more able to be a place where we can do longer-term science. If you can't figure out the facilities, you're never going to figure out Mars. Exactly. Peter Ballin-on-Rosen produced the program today. Amina Alsari edited Patrick Boyd and David Tattershore mixed, and Gabriel Donatav and Andrea Lopez Crusado.

Fact-checked the show. It's Andrea's last day. At today, explained, at least for now, we hope to see her again out there in time and space. Congratulations on a great run, I think, is the Andrea thing to say in a moment. like this.