Relief is on the way.
The space shuttle Discovery has docked at the International Space Station carrying the pressurized section of the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), a key component for the orbiting science platform.
But the Kibo laboratory is not the component that has the media buzzing. That distinction falls to a small replacement part dispatched to fix a malfunctioning zero-gravity toilet aboard the ISS.
 Photo: NASA
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THANKS FOR DROPPING BY: The crew of ISS Expedition 17 welcome colleagues from Discovery's STS-124 mission to their orbiting outpost--which has been experiencing a rather embarrassing problem recently.
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According to NASA, the crew of mission STS-124 maneuvered Discovery into a back flip so that their Expedition 17 counterparts on the space station could take close-up photos of the underside of the shuttle to look for damaged thermal tiles before approaching and docking at the ISS at 2:03 pm EDST. The astronauts and cosmonauts opened the hatches of the two vehicles about two hours later to exchange greetings and get down to the business of their nine-day joint operations.
The main order of that business will be three spacewalks to attach the 17-ton Japanese Pressurized Module to the ISS. This is the second of three missions designed to assemble the JEM section of the space station. Once finished, the Japanese science lab will become the largest module on the orbiting platform, offering future visitors the opportunity to conduct space medicine, biology, material production, biotechnology, and communications research.
Still, it's that spare toilet pump that's grabbing all the attention. The loo aboard the space station is a Russian-made facility that consists of two devices that collect human waste. The balky unit in question is the one used to suction urine in weightlessness. A broken valve caused it to fail recently, forcing the male crew to turn to alternate methods of relieving themselves. The problem, while not mission critical, is a hygienic inconvenience (and likely personal annoyance) for the Expedition 17 cosmonauts and astronauts. The fix for the toilet should be a simple procedure once the new part is on board.
The crew of STS-124 will spend most of their working hours moving the new Kibo lab section from the shuttle's cargo bay to its position on the exterior of the ISS, relocating the lab's logistics module, which was installed in a temporary spot during the last STS mission, and then join the two together.
Discovery also delivered Canadian-born astronaut Greg Chamitoff to replace flight engineer Garrett Reisman as a station resident for the next six months.
Upon greeting one another over 200 miles above the planet, Chamitoff told Reisman, "You have a beautiful house." Now, it's a house that should soon have a properly working toilet.
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