What We're Watching: The Space Potty

By Kate Becker on May 14, 2010 2:07 PM |

Because it's Friday, and because some things are funny even when you're a grownup and you know you they shouldn't be funny anymore, here is a treat from NASA: A training video for the "space potty" that astronauts use aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. You'll never think about "alignment" and "docking" the same way. (Atlantis, incidentally, just blasted off on what will likely be its last mission. But that's another story.)

If you like Mike Massimino in this video--he's the one who isn't fidgeting uncomfortably--check him out in NOVA's Hubble's Amazing Rescue and NOVA scienceNOW's Saving Hubble.

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User Comments:

Susan
May 14, 2010 9:10 PM

Wow. What a Friday night treat! Now I know how to answer one of the top ten questions every schoolkid asks--and parents wonder about as well. "Alignment is your friend." Indeed. Thanks, Kate!

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Kate Becker

As a researcher for NOVA and NOVA scienceNOW, Kate Becker investigates everything from human hibernation to invisibility cloaks, but her real soft spot is for astronomy. She likes astronomy so much, she once wrote a whole master’s thesis on it! Now that that thesis business is finished up, Kate spends her time wringing all the good stuff out of Google, scouring the magazines and journals that appear in her mailbox, and haunting the science section of her local bookstore. Kate studied physics at Oberlin College and astronomy at Cornell University, and she’s had the good fortune to observe with the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Very Large Array in New Mexico—two of the very best places on this pale blue dot of a planet, if you ask her. Kate is delighted to be a part of the NOVA team and thanks you for reading this blog. You can also follow Kate on Twitter and Facebook.