Introduction: The Space Race, a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to send a man to the moon, captured the world’s attention in the 1960s. While tensions between the nations ran high, one main focus of NASA scientists was on how to design a spacesuit to handle this harsh, new environment. These suits were created in the most practical fashion – to preserve pressures at high altitudes and protect its wearer. However, they were not created to facilitate voiding as “the first space man is not expected to have ‘to go’,” said a NASA official at the time. Methods: A review was conducted on the history of the development of space suits using Google and Google Scholar. Results: When it came to the first American in space, Alan Shepard was ready for the mission, undergoing vigorous training, both physical and psychological. What he and the crew were not prepared for on that fateful day of May 5th, 1961 were delays that led to long times spent sitting in his spacesuit waiting for launch. Shepard, unable to hold back his urine much longer, got the approval from mission control to relieve himself in the suit, short-circuiting certain monitors for his vitals. Researchers looked into other approaches to collecting urine; suprapubic and indwelling catheters were swiftly rejected due to discomfort as well as the risk for infection. The second American in space, Gus Grissom, made his own urine reservoir with two pairs of rubber pants, containing the urine between the layers, a creative yet quite impractical method. NASA, seeking to improve the current suit in terms of a urinary collecting device, looked towards the real world for people that lived with impaired detrusor activity to the purchase of a rubber urinal. Engineers created a complex valve on this device that would allow the astronaut to raise the intra-suit pressure when urinating, thus forcing the urine into the storage container, to counteract zero gravity. Conclusions: Today, maximally absorbent fabrics are utilized by astronauts as their urinary collecting devices that wick off and recycle urine. It was through Shepard’s unplanned trial of voiding into his suit that led to NASA understanding the need for urinary collecting devices, which have come a long way over the past half century. SOURCE OF Funding: None
