That sound of flushing? That's us, going where no podcast has gone before: the bathroom.

You couldn't make this stuff up. While the rest of the world was watching NASA's Artemis II crew make history with the first woman around the moon, a record-breaking 252,756 miles from Earth, including a solar eclipse, Johnny was asking the real question nobody else had the guts to ask: what happens when an astronaut has to go?

And as it turns out, the Artemis II toilet actually acted up mid-mission. Yes, really. You can't flush this stuff.

This week Johnny takes a leak on the biggest space story of the year with a deep dive into cosmic bathroom chaos. Think burritos in zero gravity, clogged space toilets, and the heroics of Christina Koch, who didn't just make history as the first woman to orbit the Moon. She's also Johnny's pick for the first astronaut plumber. Six plungers. Several coat hangers. She got the job done.

In This Episode:

• Why you should never eat a burrito before a rocket launch (we warned you)
• The real-life Artemis II toilet malfunction that had Houston scrambling
• Johnny's dramatized mission control meltdown — "Houston, we have a potty problem"
• Montezuma's Revenge... in space (they're calling it Moon-tezuma's Revenge)
• What astronaut diapers are actually designed to handle — and what they're not
• Why sending a licensed plumber to space takes 11 days, and it's a union job
• The fart flap. Yes, the fart flap.
• A tease of what's coming: elephant coffee, real doctors, and your co-hosts PP and Poo Poo

Timely Flush: Christina Koch and the Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 10th just days before this episode dropped. She's back on Earth, reunited with her dog Sadie, and probably never eating a burrito again.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – The flush heard 'round the world: intro
• 00:11 – Burritos in space: a cautionary tale
• 00:40 – Christina Koch: astronaut, trailblazer, plumber
• 01:09 – Houston, we have a potty problem (the dramatization)
• 01:39 – Diaper science and space food digestion
• 02:08 – Union rules, licensed plumbers, and 11-day shipping to the moon
• 02:39 – Moon-tezuma's Revenge and the burrito ingredients
• 03:07 – The fart flap: a technical breakthrough
• 03:36 – Everything came out alright
• 04:06 – Coming up: elephant coffee, real doctors & meet PP and Poo Poo

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Music for this episode is “Blauen Donau” (The Blue Danube) by Johann Strauss Jr., performed by European Archive. Source: Musopen.org. Licensed under CC BY.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Creator and Host, Johnny La Rock

Brand Architect, Marta La Rock, Ph.D.

Executive Producer, Erin Sweeney

Audio Engineer, George Gross

Agency, Deybruyar

Music licensed through Artlist

String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 (‘Dissonance’)” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Performed by Musopen. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

LINKS:

Be sure to send us topic request at johnnypottycast@gmail.com!