There are a lot of things American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts have in common — not the least being a certain nonchalance about where and when they urinate. Alan Shepard, the first American in space, famously relieved himself inside his silver pressure suit while waiting out the countdown in his tiny Mercury capsule — a far better solution than canceling the launch and pulling him out just because no one had thought he’d need the loo during a 15-minute suborbital mission, and his spacesuit thus had no collection bag built in
