From a letter from Spider Robinson to Ben Bova: I remember getting a newspaper clipping from Spider which showed a NASA drawing of the design for a toilet to be used under zero gravity conditions in the Skylab satellite. (NASA has problems that thee and me can’t even guess at.) The cutaway drawing of this engineering marvel showed that there was a rotating blade inside the toilet bowl, to "separate the liquid from the solid wastes," as NASA’s engineers euphemistically put it. Spider, in his scrawly handwriting, had scribbled across the top of the clipping a brief note, followed by an arrow that pointed unerringly to the bowl and the separator blade. The note said, "Ben, near as I can figure, the shit is supposed to hit the fan!" |
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