The toilet on Artemis 11 isn’t working properly.
Which is awkward. Not just for the astronauts, but for the rest of us who like to believe that if you can send humans 238,000 miles into space, you’ve probably cracked the basics.
Apparently not.
We can build rockets, navigate the void, and communicate across space with barely a delay. But when it comes to something as fundamental as going to the toilet, we are still—how to put this delicately—reliant on a bag and a bit of hope.
You won’t see that in Star Trek. No one on the bridge of the Enterprise is quietly panicking because the facilities are out of order. Captain Kirk never excuses himself mid-crisis for a “technical issue.”
Same with Star Wars. Intergalactic battles, yes. Personal hygiene logistics, less so.
It turns out the future is a bit more The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than we were led to believe. Brilliant, ambitious, and faintly ridiculous. Especially when it collides with the reality that humans are, at heart, just very clever apes.
Apes who need food. Sleep. A bit of comfort. And, at inconvenient moments, a functioning toilet.
Even our most serious debates don’t quite survive the journey into space. Back on Earth, we wrestle (rightly) with how to design facilities that are inclusive and respectful of difference. In space, the solution is… the same bag for everyone. Equality of experience, if nothing else.
And that’s before we get to the other unspoken challenges of long missions. Let’s just say that if humanity is planning extended stays in deep space, there are some very basic needs that no amount of engineering can entirely ignore.
Which brings us back down to Earth. And work.
Organisations love to think of themselves as cutting edge. Digital transformation. AI-enabled. Future of work. The language is all very… space age.
And then you turn up at the office and can’t find a desk.
Hot desking, we’re told, is efficient. Flexible. Modern. In practice, it often feels like a daily treasure hunt with added resentment. People wandering the floor with laptops, eyeing each other’s chairs, hoping something frees up before their first meeting.
We’ve reinvented work. But not quite managed somewhere for people to sit.
It’s the same problem as the spacecraft toilet. The big thinking is impressive. The small stuff lets it down.
Because however ambitious the system, it still has to work for humans. Not idealised versions of humans, but real ones. Slightly tired. Easily irritated. Creatures of habit. Apes, if we’re honest.
Ignore that, and the grand design starts to wobble.
So yes, aim for the Moon. Build the future. Embrace the technology.
Just don’t neglect the basics.
Because if your people are wandering around looking for somewhere to sit—or worse, dealing with the organisational equivalent of a broken toilet—they’re unlikely to be inspired by the vision.
They’ll be too busy wondering who designed this, and whether anyone tested it on actual humans.
