We know space travel isn’t cheap but when the toilet

for the trip costs US$23 million, it puts everything into perspective.

NASA will send a new toilet to the International Space

Station with the mind-boggling price tag this week, as the agency prepares for

furture trips to the moon or Mars.

Now, you may wonder why a toilet would ever cost so

much, and even with the scientific explanation given, we’re also still

perplexed. But we didn’t go to space school and, truthfully, never really

thought about having to go while in space.

So here’s the deal with the fancy space toilet, or

more specifically ‘Universal Waste Management System’.

The toilet is 65 per cent smaller and 40 per cent

lighter than the toilet now being used on the space station and can support

larger crews. It will also need to be able to perform well in a microgravity

environment while optimising mass volume and power usage, which are all

important parts of space-related designs.

The titanium system will also improve the pretreatment

system which collects and treats urine before it is processed and recycled for

reclaimed water.

The toilet is roughly 28 inches tall and has an

automatic starting system so.

Talk about boldly going where no man has gone before!