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There were a lot of firsts during the initial lunar landings: the first moon walk by Neil Armstrong, the first country to land on the moon, the first word spoken from the moon, and so on.
The first man to pee on the moon was Buzz Aldrin, the Lunar Module pilot and the second man to set foot on the moon.
Aldrin took his lunar leak into a special bag in his space suit, before trying to climb the Apollo 11 lander’s ladder.
“Everyone has their firsts on the moon, and that one hasn’t been disputed by anybody,” he said in the 2007 Apollo-program documentary In the Shadow of the Moon.
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Mary Robinette Kowal, 50, from Nashville, Tennessee, wrote an informative thread on peeing in space at:
Some points made:
- When the Mercury program was proposed, doctors were worried that people would not be able to urinate or even swallow without the aid of gravity. They still nonetheless made plans to send a man into space.
- When Alan Shepherd became the first American man to go into space, it was scheduled to be a fifteen-minute mission. 'They made no plans for peeing but launchpad delays meant that Shepherd hit a point where he needed to go. Badly. He asked Mission Control for permission to go in his suit. 'After consultation with flight surgeons and suit technicians, they gave him permission to do so. So he wet himself and still went into space.
- As for women in space, the problem was eventually solved by developing a 'sheath' that 'looked much like a condom. Although it worked great in testing, when the actual astronauts used it, the sheath kept blowing off and leaving them with pee in their suits.
- Astronauts had to do their Number 2s into a bag taped to their backsides but the capsule would smell of faeces.
- For the urine they could slip on a condom attached to a valve, turn the valve and have their urine sucked into the vacuum of space if it was timed right. If the valve was opened a fraction too late, urine would escape and float around the cabin. If opened too early the vacuum of space reached through the valve to grab the males’ manhood.
- The venting of pee into space was very pretty. It caught the sunlight and sparkled.
- Eventually NASA developed the MAG Maximum Absorbency Garment for use by women, a diaper. 'The men switched over to using those because it was more comfortable and less prone to leave pee floating around the cabin than the condom sheath. They also developed a zero-G toilet so that astronauts no longer had to tape a bag to their backsides.
- Urinating and defecating in space is now a lengthy process that involves the use of 'a fan and a targeting system.
- Without gravity, the poo doesn't break off as it exits the body. The astronauts have to reach back and help with special gloves.
- Peeing is basically a funnel, a tube, a bag, and a fan for suction.
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BTW:
When Sally Ride was preparing to go into space, NASA engineers asked her if 100 tampons would be the right number for a week. She said, "No. That would not be the right number."
So they cut it back to 50.
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Until 1956, French schoolchildren were commonly served wine during lunch breaks, with a daily limit of up to half a litre. This was part of a broader cultural acceptance of wine in France, even for children, often diluted with water. The practice ended with a 1956 decree banning alcohol in school canteens for students under 14, reflecting growing health concerns.
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Australia passed one of the strictest internet crackdowns in the world in March 2025, banning children under 16 from being on social media or opening new accounts.
The law, which takes effect a year from now, holds social media companies responsible for verifying kids' ages. Not complying could trigger fines up to nearly $50 million.
The law came over the objections of social media companies, which have criticised it as a form of free speech suppression. Tech companies have also argued that blocking kids from being on social media will drive them to darker, less regulated corners of the internet.
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To raise awareness about rising sea levels, Denmark installed elevated public benches in Copenhagen and other major cities, raising benches by 85 centimetres to represent the predicted sea-level rise by 2100, according to the UN Climate Report.
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In 2006, Time Magazine’s Person of the Year was “You.”
They put a reflective computer screen on the cover, implying that every internet user — especially content creators on platforms like YouTube, Wikipedia, and social media — was helping to shape the future of media and communication.
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