Everybody poops. So what’s an astronaut to do when hurtling through space with zero gravity and zero privacy? Go boldly.

This is a scientific history of pooping in space. From the earliest NASA missions up through the innovative results of their recent Space Poop Challenge design competition, we see the evolution of pooping on the final frontier. With fascinating facts and a few mishaps and discarded technologies along the way, we learn why it’s so hard to deal with waste management in space.

Illustrated by: Lars Kenseth