{"id":583818,"date":"2026-04-03T23:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/583818\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T23:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:32:08","slug":"artemis-ii-crew-member-becomes-space-plumber-to-fix-blocked-toilet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/583818\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II crew member becomes \u2018space plumber\u2019 to fix blocked toilet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An Artemis II astronaut became a \u201cspace plumber\u201d for the day, after <a href=\"https:\/\/uk.news.yahoo.com\/young-space-enthusiast-adorable-response-132544174.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:the spacecraft;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;the spacecraft&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the spacecraft <\/a>encountered toilet trouble.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On the first day of the historic mission, the crew reported the $30m (\u00a322.6m) Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) onboard the rocket was not working due to an issue with the toilet fan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After mission control teams on the ground assessed data, they were able to fix the problem with the help of the Artemis II crew, notably Christina Koch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Commenting on the malfunction, Koch said: \u201cI\u2019m proud to call myself the space plumber\u201d, adding the whole crew breathed a sigh of relief when the \u201cmost important piece of equipment\u201d began functioning as normal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Artemis II astronaut became a \u201cspace plumber\u201d for the day, after the spacecraft encountered toilet trouble. On&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,277279,285918,128,285919,285917],"class_list":{"0":"post-583818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-christina-koch","11":"tag-plumber","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-toilet-trouble","14":"tag-universal-waste-management-system"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}