this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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Today I Learned

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Fecal bag description begins at minute 2:00.

top 28 comments
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[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 16 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Fun fact!

One of those "fecal specimens" escaped containment during the Apollo 10 lunar flyby and floated around the crew module. The event would forever be immortalized in the mission's radio transcripts:

Cernan: "Where did that come from?"

Stafford: "Get me a napkin quick. There's a turd floating through the air."

Young: "I didn't do it. It ain't one of mine."

Cernan: "I don't think it's one of mine."

Stafford: "Mine was a little more sticky than that. Throw that away."

Young: "God Almighty"

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 10 points 10 hours ago

If ever there was an EWW moment, this is it.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know. It's soft and warm.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 26 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Spend tens of billions.

Poop in a bag.

[–] dance_ninja@lemmy.world 31 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] johncritzman@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

And that bag cost tens of thousands of dollars to design!

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 8 points 13 hours ago

When you add up people's time to design and test, absolutely. Could have crossed $100,000 and it would be a teaspnable cost. Wouldn't want to half ass a space poop bag.

This how it works in any business, R&D is high but businesses tend to spead that cost out per item when massproducted. One off or limited uses are always far more than mass production.

[–] Billygoat@piefed.social 4 points 9 hours ago

Well, you didn’t think they spent $10,000 on a hammer, $20,000 on a toilet seat?

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 21 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Did the video tell you about the diet the Astronauts had to eat prior to and while on the mission?

The engineering that NASA did and still does really is amazing.

[–] IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I'd never considered this, growing up I was always taught 'squeeze pouch' or toothpaste tube-food type stuff.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

It was that, it was just a very low fiber diet so they pooped a lot less.

[–] IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I..uhh..that just reinforces the plausibity of my mental image of astronaut diarrhea..

🤮

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 hours ago
[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 13 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Frank Sinatra never said anything about pooping in a bag! This is outrageous!

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 16 points 12 hours ago

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars

Then poop in a bag out there by Jupiter and Mars

In other words, please be true

In other words, massage your poo.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Some of us still use them. WAG bag. Plz don't leave poop in my wilderness.

[–] IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Plz don't leave poop in my wilderness

I have some bad news for you...

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

You left human feces in the woods?

[–] IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

~~Probably~~ definitely back when I was a boy scout on camping trips. But mostly just...literally all of nature shits in the woods. 👀

It's a great fertilizer too.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

Human poo sometimes contains human pathogens. I can't catch much from a bird or a cat or something.

[–] kalpol@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 hours ago

Bears eat people

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago

Some of those bags are still on the moon today, in the lockers on the descent stages where they were left.

[–] certified_expert@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Is this the design from the guy in The Big Bang Theory show?

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 2 points 13 hours ago

lol. Perhaps they used meatloaf to test it.

[–] bonenode@piefed.social 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Did they have a hundred bags?

[–] IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 hours ago

The mission took 8 days and 3 hours, so assuming 1 poop a day for 3 astronauts, they'd be fine with 30 (I'm sure they had extras just in case).