Wait, astronauts pooped on the moon and just left it there?!

April 3, 2019 7:47 AM

Apollo astronauts left their poop on the moon. We gotta go back for that shit.
posted by BuddhaInABucket (46 comments total)

Paging Wordshore, et al to the poop courtesy post.
posted by Bella Donna at 8:19 AM on April 3, 2019 [6 favorites]

Probably blown away by now. snicker
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:22 AM on April 3, 2019

I approve of this post.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:35 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

Theory: decades of exposure to radiation has degraded the material of the bags and their inner containment bags. Only a few bacteria have survived the harsh conditions but they did survive. And now they thrive and they have colonized the Moon. Our doodies deeds cannot be undone.
posted by hippybear at 8:40 AM on April 3, 2019 [6 favorites]

The adhesive tape that attaches the fecal containment bag to the user looks like it 'taint a lot of fun to use.
posted by peeedro at 8:46 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

Based on its most prominent occupants, this is almost certainly how life came to earth originally.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:53 AM on April 3, 2019 [12 favorites]

It's so American to just leave literal shit on the moon.
posted by Automocar at 8:58 AM on April 3, 2019 [7 favorites]

Unlike the Soviets
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:04 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

Do you want the Andromeda Strain? Because that's how you get the Andromeda Strain.
posted by The Tensor at 9:08 AM on April 3, 2019 [12 favorites]

One small poop for a man. A giant shit for mankind.
posted by night_train at 9:15 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is all well and good, except the Moon's haunted.
posted by Etrigan at 9:22 AM on April 3, 2019

Pooper Moon.
posted by Pendragon at 9:24 AM on April 3, 2019 [5 favorites]

Props to Frank Borman, who tried to go the entire 14-day mission duration of Gemini VII without pooping, but succumbed to the call of nature after 9 days.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:25 AM on April 3, 2019 [4 favorites]

Those degrading bags had an important duty.
posted by sleeping bear at 9:47 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Do we have any telescopes (in space or on earth) that can give sufficiently hi-res views of the landing sites to see the condition of the lunar missions’ detritus?

Also, is the content of the bags enough to sustain a bacterial colony for 50 years? Is there anything in the lunar regolith that works as food for bacteria?
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:57 AM on April 3, 2019

Do we have any telescopes (in space or on earth) that can give sufficiently hi-res views of the landing sites to see the condition of the lunar missions’ detritus?

No. The best images of the landing sites we have are from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
posted by peeedro at 10:19 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

I wanna be all like "life finds a way", but between wildly fluctuating temperatures, enormous cumulative doses of radiation and a lack of any external food source, I reckon we can probably put spending billions to check on some bags of trash pretty low down our civilisational to-do list.
posted by howfar at 10:41 AM on April 3, 2019

I like to think that, several billion years from now, long after the last human has died, aliens will clone us from the GI endothelial cells preserved in that poop. I also like to think that said clones will escape from their amusement park enclosures and go on a murderous rampage, thus confirming the warnings of an eccentric alien mathematician.
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:58 AM on April 3, 2019 [13 favorites]

Props to Frank Borman, who tried to go the entire 14-day mission duration of Gemini VII without pooping

THIS IS NOT A GOAL WORTH SEEKING
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:05 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

Welp that's enough internet for one day.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:36 AM on April 3, 2019 [5 favorites]

*loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship*

Props to Frank Borman, who tried to go the entire 14-day mission duration of Gemini VII without pooping

Summer camp is tough on shy kids, but it teaches lessons you remember your whole life long.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:45 AM on April 3, 2019 [14 favorites]

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon, and pooping there.
posted by biogeo at 11:46 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

Doodie, Honor, Country
posted by xedrik at 11:46 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

Giant turds are what you make
Pooping on the moon
I hope my suit don't break
Pooping on the moon
We could poop forever
Pooping on the moon
We could poop together
Pooping on, pooping on the moon
posted by kirkaracha at 12:02 PM on April 3, 2019 [7 favorites]

"It's so American to just leave literal shit on the moon."

Yeah, right bud, can't try to blame this thing on just Americans. Littering and making a mess when travelling isn't remotely a uniquely American trait.

"THIS IS NOT A GOAL WORTH SEEKING"

Maybe it is when the alternative is to shit in a diaper you're stuck in, in goddamn
outer space.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:47 PM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

I want to see this scifi horror movie.

Monsters on the moon? Murdering astronauts? But where did they come from?!
LITERALLY EVOLVED FROM BUZZ ALDRIN'S TANG-Y SHITS [dun dun DAAAA]
posted by Maaik at 12:52 PM on April 3, 2019 [5 favorites]

Um, y'all noticed that the last update for that story was 09:20 on April 1st, right? And those trash bags are suspiciously like the ones in my kitchen cupboard right now? And the second picture shows a bag just lying there on it's side beside the leg of the lander but we've never seen it before?
posted by kaymac at 2:38 PM on April 3, 2019 [5 favorites]

my name is Neil,
and wen its nite,
or wen the moon
is shiyning brite,
and all the men
haf gon to bed -
i stay up late.
i jett the bag.
posted by chavenet at 2:38 PM on April 3, 2019 [6 favorites]

the last update for that story was 09:20 on April 1st

You mean it’s a hoax?

Call it...

Capricorn Two.

(Shades, Baba O’Riley....)
posted by chavenet at 2:41 PM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

the moon is a hoax outer space is a myth wake up sheeple
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:44 PM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

"Buzz Aldrin declined to comment for this story"

But he did comment on the story.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 2:50 PM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

I like to think that, several billion years from now, long after the last human has died, aliens will clone us from the GI endothelial cells preserved in that poop. I also like to think that said clones will escape from their amusement park enclosures and go on a murderous rampage, thus confirming the warnings of an eccentric alien mathematician.

Jurassic Poop
posted by freecellwizard at 3:51 PM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

Again, this is the most extreme place we’ve ever left life — possibly the most extreme place life has ever been.

What about the inside of an autoclave?
posted by biogeo at 4:05 PM on April 3, 2019

Capricorn Two.

Copro-corn, Number Two.
posted by zaixfeep at 4:25 PM on April 3, 2019 [4 favorites]

By the time we are able to roam the solar system at will, we'll have worked out these issues, so there will be no chance of poop being left on Uranus.
posted by zaixfeep at 4:28 PM on April 3, 2019 [4 favorites]

Welp that's enough internet for one day.

You baby.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:09 PM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

If you believed
They left some crap on the moon
Crap on the moon
If you believe
Their bowels they did relieve
And they left their poo
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:18 PM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Props to Frank Borman, who tried to go the entire 14-day mission duration of Gemini VII without pooping, but succumbed to the call of nature after 9 days.

Pfah. Amateur. Get that man some opiods and a proper sense of self-loathing, and we'll have this problem solved in a heartbeat. (Ask me about spinal surgery, and the mounting levels of panic in the followups with the surgeon!)
posted by Mayor West at 6:50 PM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

96 bags of waste?

You know what? I'm glad that those three men, it would seem, went on a weeks-long Guinness-and-takeaway-curry bender before they went into space, and then spent the full entirety of their 75 hour space journey to the Moon ceaselessly shitting themselves.

I'm really glad they left behind those 96 bags of astronaut poop, and I really hope that the unique lunar conditions and cosmic radiation have caused that poop to become sentient.

I hope that, having achieved sentience, the poop has evolved to become deceitful, conniving, calculating, and has developed a massive grudge. And I hope that we bring that deceitful, bitter, hyperintelligent poop back to Earth, and it wipes out our entire species, in the most horrific and justified manner available.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:38 PM on April 3, 2019 [4 favorites]

You're gonna poop ninety-six poops
You're gonna poop ninety-six poops
You're gonna poop, poop, poop, poop now
You're gonna poop, poop, poop, poop
Ninety-six poops
posted by kirkaracha at 9:07 PM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

96 spacebags of poop on the moon
96 spacebags of poop
bring one back to houston
check if the bacteria's reproducin'
95 spacebags of poop on the moon.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:33 PM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

Do you want the Andromeda Strain Stain? Because that's how you get the Andromeda Strain Stain.

FTFY
posted by axiom at 9:41 PM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

I am profoundly distressed by the finger cot in that diagram.
posted by emelenjr at 4:06 AM on April 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

With sincere and horrified apologies to Gil Scott-Heron

A rat done bit my sister Nell
With doodie on the moon
Her face and arms began to swell
And doodie's on the moon

posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:40 AM on April 4, 2019

When the moon makes you gag
Like a flaming paper bag
That's Apollo

Smell that green lunar breeze
Like a limburger cheese
That's Apollo
posted by moonmilk at 6:29 AM on April 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

See Buzz Aldrin's remark: "Well, I sure feel bad for whoever finds my bag"
posted by Schroder at 6:57 AM on April 4, 2019