Doctor Comes Up With Brilliant Solution For Space Poop Problem

Air Force Col. Thather Cardon, commander of the 47th medical group at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, may have just won the lottery with a new idea for diapers.

The doctor won a NASA contest for a spacesuit poop problem, winning the $15,000 first-place prize in NASA’s “Space Poop Challenge.” The challenge was launched in order to find the beast idea to manage bodily waste needs for people wearing spacesuits for up to 144 hours, or six continuous days.

Not only did Cardon find a solution, but he found one that could be applicable elsewhere other than in space.

What was his idea exactly? An in-suit waste management system that allows human waste to be collected through an access port on the garment. Cardon’s system requires the person to rub a wand-like tool fitted with a fabric over the waste area.

His idea may have the potential to be used in an emergency situation in space such as a moon mission where there’s a loss of cabin pressure that requires the crew to put on space suits for about a week.

He has already filed for patent and his idea could be used elsewhere too.

“One part that might have some application on Earth is the diaper solution,” he told Air Force Times in an interview published this week. “One of the problems with diapers is once you have them on, you can’t take them off with the suit.”
Cardon told the Times he planned to speak about the idea at an incontinence engineering conference in April.