Here's who was on the rocket that day: Astronauts Neil Armstrong, left, Michael Collins, center, and Edwin A. Aldrin, are pictured in this 1969 Apollo II crew portrait. It also gave Grissom the distinction of being the only astronaut of the era to fly in lingerie. less Past Apollo mission astronaut Frank Borman talks about the successful lunar landing of Apollo 11 and of the future of the space missions during a news conference at the White House, July 20, 1969. The flip side of a stay on the moon was that astronauts couldn’t just pop back into the lunar module to relieve themselves midway through a moonwalk. less Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is shown making history as he climbs down the ladder from the lunar module (left photo) and a few seconds later becomes the first human to set foot on the moon (right photo). Despite the high-tech capsule and clothing, there was one glaring oversight in the original Mercury mission planning: there was no thought to the astronaut having to urinate during the flight. It had to be stored as neatly as possible. And now you know how astronauts go to the bathroom on the moon.
– It was a mission-critical element: the size of NASA astronauts' manhood. Seriously. The Houston Chronicle resurrects the fascinating historical tidbit by way of the Science Channel's Moon Machines documentary series, in which engineer Donald Rethke explained the very precise nature of early space diapers. The Maximum Absorbency Garment system, donned by Gemini and Apollo astronauts, featured one very specific element: a sleeve likened to a condom with a hole at the tip that enabled the men to urinate into a pouch with a one-way valve in their suits. Three sleeve sizes were available, small, medium, and large. And astronauts couldn't fib, explains Rethke. If they decided to order the next size up, the sheath wouldn't fit snugly, and liquid could potentially leak out, causing damage. To make the process a little less embarrassing, the sizes were later renamed: large, gigantic, and humongous. Motherboard notes that the urination issue was first brought to the fore by Alan Shepard, who spent hours in the Freedom 7 capsule in advance of a quick 15-minute "suborbital hop." Denied permission to leave the capsule, he opted to pee in his suit—forcing Mission Control to turn off his biomedical sensors until the flow of oxygen in the suit dried the pee, allowing the sensors to be switched on. Today's astronauts enjoy actual restrooms, though MAG systems are provided to astronauts who are operating outside space vehicles. (Other unusual NASA history: A scientist "stole" a satellite from the agency in 1983—and is ready to give it back.)