Elon Musk says there was ‘challenges’ with the toilet during SpaceX’s Inspiration4 trip to space

Private Spaceflight Explainer (John Kraus)

There were “challenges” with the toilet during SpaceX’s first entirely private trip to space, Elon Musk has revealed.

The SpaceX chief executive did not elaborate on what those problems were, but said the future mission will “definitely” include “upgraded toilets” to ensure they did not happen again.

Mr Musk revealed the problems on Twitter, after revealing that he had met with the crew after they touched down in Florida.

Before the mission, much of the discussion had been about how good the toilet in the SpaceX Dragon capsule that carried the crew were set to be. They were situated just beneath the “cupola”, the huge built-in window, meaning the crew could look out into space as they relieved themselves.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who funded the trip into space, told Insider that the toilet was covered by a curtain that might offer some privacy.

SpaceX has not said much about how exactly the toilet works, but training on it was part of the extended regime of preparation that the crew of four space tourists had to go through before their flight.

Other improvements in the future will include a “little oven for heating food”, Mr Musk said. He had already apologised to the crew for the fact they had to eat cold pizza and promised a “food warmer”, to which Mr Isaacman said he had “no complaints” and that the “food was great”.

Mr Musk also said that the Dragon will include a WiFi connection through SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. Mr Isaacman has revealed that the reason the photos of the Inspiration4 were few and far between was because the spacecraft only had “so many ground station passes to transmit video” and that government agencies such as Nasa were given priority to use those connections.