How do astronauts urinate in space ?

When American astronaut Alan Shepard couldn't hold his pee any longer on their space mission in 1961, he was directed to do it in his suit, a new book has revealed.According to Tom Wolfe's book 'The Right Stuff,' that's what mission control said to Shepard during Mercury-Redstone 3, when the astronaut said he needed to urinate. Shepard did as he was told. The first American to reach the stars did so in a soggy space suit. Hunter Hollins, a historian at the National Air and Space Museum, was rereading Wolfe's book and was especially stunned by this incident.

He told ABC News he was really amazed and kind of incredulous that they let him urinate in his space suit.His bewilderment led him to search the NASA archives, looking for any mention of astronauts needing to relieve themselves.A couple of months before Shepard's 1961 journey to outer space, a student named Brenda Kemmerer wrote to NASA, asking where the first man in space would use the toilet.Freeman H. Quimby, from the Office of Life Science Programs at NASA, wrote back.He said that the first space man was not expected to have "to go."Shepard was only expected to be in the spacesuit for about five hours.However, due to launch delays, he endured eight hours in the suit.During those extra hours, he relieved himself.

The urine flowed into his suit and short circuited some of the electrodes that were monitoring his heart and respiration.Even though NASA expected its astronauts to not urinate, another government agency did.Engineers at the CIA that were involved with the U-2 spy plane project created an external urine collection device (UCD) back in 1955.Like its name implies, the UCD collects urine and transports it to an external compartment.Even though both the CIA and NASA are government agencies, the UCD technology was not shared between the two.

NASA was just slightly more prepared for its second flight, Mercury-Redstone 4.Gus Grissom, the astronaut for this mission, wore two pairs of rubber pants so that his urine would be contained in the reservoir between them. Though it worked, there was still room for improvement.

on urine collection."B.F. Goodrich, the company in charge of manufacturing NASA's spacesuits, had developed a prototype UCD, it failed to keep the urine fully contained.

The test subjects refused to use it because it leaked.NASA hired James McBarron to address the problem head on.McBarron and his colleagues searched for a better way to make a UCD, eventually turning to condoms for inspiration.After McBarron found a brand that met his standards, he worked with the company and modified its product.The space suit condom would have an open end that would fit snugly on an external storage container.McBarron's UCD was implemented on John Glenn's flight on the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission in 1962, and used for both the remainder of the Mercury Project, as well as through any flight that required a pressurized space suit.

The findings are published in the journal Advances in Physiology Education. (ANI) Imagine you're an astronaut. You're strapped into your seat wearing a bulky spacesuit, waiting to be blasted through the stratosphere, when the unthinkable happens: You gotta use the restroom. That nightmare scenario actually happened to Alan Shepard, who, as part of the Freedom 7 mission, became the first American to walk in fly up into space on May 5, 1961. Since his leg-crossing (and potentially dangerous) mishap, waste management has become a serious concern for NASA scientists, who have spent decades refining the technology to help prepare our brave men and women for Mother Nature's inopportune calls. Here's a brief history of taking leaks in space:

What happened to Shepard? 
After more than three hours of lying on his back due to delays, with just minutes left until takeoff, Shepard told mission control he just couldn't hold it anymore. "Man, I gotta pee," he told Gordon Cooper, who was stationed at the nearby blockhouse. (Shepard had gorged on orange juice and coffee for breakfast.) After some discussion, NASA's scientists concluded that it was probably safe for him to pee in his spacesuit once its electrics were temporarily switched off. According to Freedom 7 mission'spost-flight debriefing, Shepard managed to avoid electrocuting himself (which would have been embarrassing for NASA, to say the least), but his suit's electronic biosensors short-circuited. It probably smelled pretty bad in there, too. Why didn't scientists consider the problem beforehand?
Back in the '60s, space missions were considerably shorter. In fact, Shepard's entire flight was scheduled to last just 15 minutes before he was hit with delays. How did NASA attempt to address the issue? Scientists had a few ideas in mind. According to PhysOrg, one was to outfit space explorers with catheters, which as most people know are "extremely uncomfortable and greatly increase the risk of infection."  A somewhat sustainable solution was reached for John H. Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 mission on Feb. 20, 1962, when he was outfitted with a condom-like device that was connected via a tube to a storage container. Glenn used it; it worked. This modification persisted throughout theApollo missions of the late '60s, in which Neil Armstrong and Co. wore "urine and fecal containment systems" underneath their spandex trunks.

Do astronauts still use tubes?
Not anymore. Since the '80s, NASA has been outfitting its men and women with what are essentially high-tech diapers. During 1983's Challenger mission, astronauts wore Disposable Absorption Containment Trunks, or DACTs. They slide on like bike shorts, and have sodium polyacrylate powder woven into the fabric, which can absorb up to 1,000 times its own weight in water.

Today's astronauts, though, wear Maximum Absorbency Garments — MAGs for short. (Former astronaut Lisa Nowak was said to be wearing a pair when she attempted to kidnap U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman back in 2007 in order to avoid pit stops.) The official brand was called Absorbencies, although the company has since folded. NASA still owns a stockpile of a few thousand of the super-absorbent MAGs, which comes in handy during space walks that can last up to eight hours at a time. And don't forget that astronauts re-entering Earth's atmosphere are mandated to drink a half gallon of salty water in order to stay hydrated. According to the Chicago Tribute, "The body retains less water in zero gravity; if astronauts didn't replenish their fluids, they might faint when they returned to Earth's gravity."