CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA rushed Wednesday to get a special pump on board shuttle Discovery to fix a balky toilet on the international space station, as the Saturday launch countdown got underway.
The space station’s Russian-built toilet has been acting up for the past week. The three male residents have temporarily bypassed the problem, which involves urine collection, not solid waste.
Russian space officials are providing the 1 1/2-foot-long pump, which was en route to Florida.
To make room for the pump inside Discovery’s crammed cabin, NASA was going to pull out some wrenches, a spare part for the space station’s oxygen generator and a microbe-killing device for use in the European space lab.
NASA is also squeezing in a Disney action figure, Buzz Lightyear. The toy popularized by the 1995 movie “Toy Story” will spend several months at the space station as part of an educational program for math and science teachers and their students.
