Mike Mullane Quotes

#1. The opening for solid waste is very small [in the space ship]. It's not toilet-bowl size. And aim is critical. To be honest with you, you don't know where your asshole is pointing within a small circumference.

Mike Mullane

#2. If you look at astronauts closely, their eyes look kind of puffy. And it gives you this mild headache. But one of the advantages of that, if you will.

Mike Mullane

#3. After the urine is collected over a couple of days, it's dumped into space, which is beautiful to watch because the urine freezes into a glitter of ice crystals shimmering in the sun.

Mike Mullane

#4. You can't put toilet paper in the toilet [in the space ship], so there's a separate vacuum can in front of you on the wall and when you're done, you put the toilet paper in there and seal that up.

Mike Mullane

#5. There's no way you can use water to collect waste in zero gravity. So, basically, our toilet on shuttle operations is a vacuum cleaner. The urinal looks like a Shop-Vac hose. It has different-shaped fronts on it for males and females to use. The urine is sucked down that hose and goes into a tank.

Mike Mullane

#6. We were like the Mount Everest climbers stepping over frozen corpses from prior climbing disasters in our quest for the summit. Like those climbers, we were motivated by a fear far greater than death - the fear of not reaching the top.

Mike Mullane

#7. The solid waste is returned to Earth with the shuttle. If we [astronauts] ever dump solid waste overboard, it's going to give new meaning to wishing upon a falling star.

Mike Mullane

#8. In weightlessness, one of the physiological changes is a fluid shift. Your blood and fluid is equally distributed in your body. So that makes your calves and thighs and waist skinnier, and it makes your chest and women's breasts broader. The downside is your face is kind of puffy

Mike Mullane

#9. NASA's training philosophy is "no surprises." So what they did is put a simulator on Earth where it looks exactly the same as a shuttle toilet and they put a camera down in the bottom of the opening for solid-waste collection, with a light that basically illuminates your asshole.

Mike Mullane