Suboptimal in subspace

As you may or may not have read in your friendly neighborhood newspaper, or elsewhere, the SpaceX crew returned home — in diapers.

No, sci-fi fans, it’s not one for the X Files nor real-life inspiration for the Twilight Zone. It’s the most mundane of all problems: A broken toilet. Given the zero-gravity situation, it’s easy to understand why “absorbent undergarments” were the most workable solution until these astronauts can re-ground.

Here’s one for the Luddites and techno-haters out there, though; as with any other fancy or “smart” technology these days, half the time you have to kick it old school when it breaks. And since astronauts have to train to use their space toilet (presumably due to aforementioned gravity concerns), it must feel like all that practice went down the — well, the nonfunctioning receptacle.

As SpaceX astronaut Megan McArthur put it, the situation is really “suboptimal.”

Also “suboptimal” is the fact that the only relevant photo many news sources have access to is a snapshot of a joyous Dragon crew showing off International Space Station-grown chilies.

If you’re learning to write better comedy, consider a shot of chili-happy astronauts above the headline “No toilet for returning SpaceX crew, stuck using diapers,” courtesy of The Associated Press, chapter 2. (Banana peels are naturally chapter 1).

Being in space comes with a lot of brag-worthy experiences, from “I left the atmosphere” to “I got a better view of the moon than you ever will,” but it seems that the out-of-this-world experience comes with plenty of less-than-stellar tradeoffs.

In fact, it’s pretty grody living off-planet. (Do the kids still say that?)

Astronauts don’t — and can’t — wash their clothes in space, so they change clothes on a carefully planned schedule. We’ve all worn the same clothes two days in a row before, and stretching a T-shirt into one week’s use (excluding exercise wear) seems manageable. What’s a little horrifying is that underwear (the usual kind, not the specially absorbent variety) may be worn two to three days straight before it’s replaced.

The controlled environment, which probably has a lot less dirt and fewer germs floating around, makes the situation less “suboptimal” than it sounds, but that’s gotta take a week to adjust to. After that bomb drops in pre-flight briefing, it must be easy to get on board with wearing the same pants for a month.

At that point, astronauts probably don’t care when they develop rough, almost scaly skin on the top of their toes due to constantly hooking them under railings and straps to stay put. Apparently, even with specially padded socks, their skin suffers. They also get to watch the dead, dry and tough skin on the soles of their feet slough off. On the list of quirky skills these spacewalkers learn is careful sock removal — so as not to shower their coworkers with dead skin bits. On the bright side, they are eventually graced with baby-smooth feet (other than the scaly bit on top), since they rarely put any weight on them.

Worst of all, perhaps even worse than the Dragon crew’s multi-day diaper stint, is that in space, water gets recycled more immediately, making for a very different kind of water cycle. Although the purification process is sure to be thorough and safe, I’m guessing astronauts don’t reflect much on where their water came from — or who drank it last.

All things considered, McArthur’s “suboptimal” situation may be no understatement. Stargazers like her are made of sterner stuff.

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Note: British astronaut Tim Peake’s book “Ask an Astronaut: My Guide to Life in Space,” from which many of these astro-facts came, promises to be more than optimal.