Being an astronaut sounds really cool until you consider the fact that to get to work you have to ride atop a flaming tower filled with volatile chemicals and once you get there you can’t even defecate with dignity.

Going to the bathroom on the International Space Station (ISS) has to be one of the low points of any astronaut’s day. The astronauts have to strip down from their one piece jumpsuit and strap their feet into stirrups lest a tremendous bout of flatulence launch them into the bulkhead.

We can all agree that a broken toilet on the ISS is a big problem. Unfortunately for the astronauts that is exactly what has happened. The ISS toilet liquid waste system stopped working while an astronaut was using it last week. CNN reports that the fan motor stopped working but the solid waste system is still functional.

The astronauts have resorted to using a bag like system that is the backup for the real $19 million toilet on the ISS. NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said, “Like any home anywhere, the importance of having a working bathroom is obvious.”

This isn’t the first time the 7-year-old toilet system on the ISS has been on the fritz according to Johnson space center spokeswoman Nicole Cloutier. Cloutier said that NASA officials are having parts for the toilet flown to Cape Canaveral, Florida and placed in the shuttle Discovery during its countdown for launch on Saturday.

The shuttle is set to launch Saturday and dock with the ISS Monday to deliver the next section of the Japanese lab, which weighs 32,000 pounds. The problem with adding items to the shuttle payload during countdown is that finding a place for the parts is difficult due to the very stringent load distribution and weight limits of the shuttle. The first section of the Japanese lab was delivered to the ISS in March aboard the shuttle Endeavour.