Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Kitchen Utensil Anomaly

When the Space Shuttle Endeavor made it's final flight recently, we at Marshall Lane were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it. One of our teachers was able snap a picture.

It was pretty awesome.  I thought it would be a good idea to pull out and display some space shuttle books for the students check out.  One of the books I pulled out was To Space and Back by Sally Ride and Susan Okie from 1986! Today I was considering weeding this book because it's pretty old and we have plenty of up to date books about the space shuttle.  But it's by Sally Ride and I felt kind of sad about weeding it.  I started to flip through the pages and the book is full of really great pictures of the astronauts in space doing their daily routines; eating, sleeping, exercising.  Then I came across this picture:
Yep.  That's a space toilet.  I thought, well, that's interesting.  Then I noticed something in the upper left corner.  That's a spatula.  What do you suppose that is for?

2 comments:

Melissa Morgan said...

That all looks pretty high tech and complicated. I was noticing the gear shift on the right. And wondering if that hosey thing had sucking action. :)

Mrs. Richards said...

Yes, according to this book, in lieu of gravity, the toilet uses suction to whisk away the waste. Also, those things that look like handles actually swivel in over the legs to keep one from floating away in the midst of business. There is no explanation for the spatula.