Babies May Soon Be Wearing NASA Astronaut Diapers For A Week

Doctor who won NASA contest sees diaper product opportunity, CNBC
“An Air Force doctor who won a NASA contest for a spacesuit poop problem filed for a patent and plans to go to a conference next month where his smart idea could come closer to reality. It turns out the solution he developed might have applications other than in space. “One part that might have some application on Earth is the diaper solution,” Air Force Col. Thatcher Cardon, commander of the 47th medical group at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, told Air Force Times in an interview published this week. “One of the problems with diapers is once you have them on, you can’t take them off with the suit.” Cardon told the Times he planned to speak about the idea at an incontinence engineering conference in April. “We’ll see what people think,” he said. Last month, Cardon won a $15,000 first-place prize in NASA’s “Space Poop Challenge,” which was launched to find how to best manage bodily waste needs in a spacesuit for someone wearing it for nearly a week.”
Maximum Absorbency Garment
“The adult-sized diaper with extra absorption material is used because astronauts cannot remove their space suits during long operations, such as spacewalks that usually last for several hours. Generally, three MAGs were given during space shuttle missions, one for launch, reentry, and an extra for spacewalking or for a second reentry attempt.”
Keith’s note: (My) silliness aside, this may actually be a rather significant NASA spinoff when you consider the growing number of elderly patients who require assisted living and skilled nursing support.