The toilet on the International Space Station was finally fixed yesterday, provoking a sigh of relief from astronauts and a wave of giggles from the earthlings here below. The zero-gravity toilet broke two weeks ago, and couldn't be fixed until the space shuttleDiscovery arrived at the station with a load of spare parts. Discovery had a trip to the station scheduled anyway, to deliver a $1 billion science lab that's now the largest component of the station. But while mission command may have hoped to use the shuttle's trip to educate the public on zero-gravity science experiments, the emergency toilet repair took the spotlight instead. Yesterday, astronauts installed a new pump in the toilet to repair the one that failed.
The solid waste system was operating properly, but the liquid system, which uses air flow to direct urine and store it in a receptacle, began malfunctioning more than a week ...
