April 4, 2026

Artemis II astronauts report burning smell from malfunctioning $23M toilet
Astronauts on board Artemis II reported a mysterious burning smell coming from the $23 million advanced toilet system which previously malfunctioned after takeoff. “Regarding the smell, I just wanted to make sure you all were tracking the EGS notes of the kind of burning heater smell that was coming from toilet several times,” astronaut Chrisna Koch, who fixed the toilet on Thursday, radioed to mission control on Saturday, Space.com reported.

In a dazzling display of cosmic priorities, NASA’s Artemis II crew is boldly going where no plumber has gone before, battling the olfactory assault of a $23 million throne that apparently doubles as a smoke machine. While scientists have spent decades cracking black holes and quantum puzzles, the real mystery up in orbit is why a fancy bathroom fixture smells like it’s auditioning for a fire alarm drill. Astronaut Chrisna Koch’s valiant mid-mission plumbing fix reminds us that in space exploration, sometimes the greatest adventure isn’t the moon, but surviving the bureaucratic circus around a slightly toasty toilet seat—because nothing says cutting-edge technology like burning bathroom hardware beaming live to mission control, proving once again that up there, even the crap’s first-class.

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