To Boldly Go Ch. 02

I've gotten a few questions regarding the real life scenario. The details are naturally not easy to come by to respect the privacy of all the test subjects, but the basic summary is this;

When the space shuttle was being designed, the space toilet was a distinct improvement over previous methods. One of the tasks was indeed making it usable by both genders, since early on in the program it was recognized that women would be going to space. The solution was to have different funnels for each astronaut to use. In order to design the funnel for the women, NASA researchers conducted a series of studies where videos of women urinating were studied to determine how to best construct the equipment. Naturally this was done in a very professionally discreet manner, with subject anonymity a top priority.

Interestingly enough, the toilet on the international space station was a step backwards, as it assumed that peeing in a standing position was always feasible for both genders, and it did not provide the easiest means to use both the solid waste and liquid waste functions at the same time. Long story short, this has been a struggle for a long time, and thus was the inspiration for this story which, as you will see, does not have anywhere near as much professional behavior as would have been required by NASA!

Fair warning, this chapter is a bit of a slow burn...but I promise you things will heat up very rapidly going forward.

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Amazingly, lunch wasn't as awkward as Alan thought that it would be. Amelia acted as though nothing unusual had happened on their way there, and aside from general small talk, she'd brought along some of the scratchwork drawings that he and Lucille had produced, and they clarified many of the things she would need to draft up the final technical drawings.

Returning to the conference room, they found everyone with the exception of Emily seated and ready to go.

"Emily is back at the school" Abigail said as Alan got settled in, answering the obvious question. "Aside from a meeting with one of her professors, she wanted some more time in the library, now that she has a better idea of what this project needs. For now though, I think we have an idea of what the next step is. Unfortunately this is a blocker for another issue"

"I see. Well, at least the path forward is clear" Alan replied. "What needs to be done?"

"You know how Ginny brought up the point about the seat redesign, right?" Kira piped up, adjusting one of the chopsticks holding her hair bun together absentmindedly. "Well, we can't do that until we know how big and what shape the new funnels will be. I mean, while it might be possible to over-design the limits of the seat, the more it changes, the more difficult Lucille's job becomes."

Alan nodded. The seat was attached to the solid waste processing system, and since that wasn't being changed, they had limited room as to how much the seat could be altered. "Okay. I heard a lot of discussion prior to lunch. Do we have a game plan yet?"

"Yes." confirmed Abigail, flipping open her notepad. "For the overall shape of the funnel, Emily had an idea that she's going to look into in the library; we'll see if it pans out. As far as testing and developing the design is concerned, this is going to take place in four stages. First, we need to get a large sample size of the range of possible angles of fluid trajectory. This will affect the overall attachment position of the hose to the funnel, which in turn affects how the seat needs to change.

Alan nodded. "That makes sense. Is that all we'll need to remove the blocker on the seat redesign?"

Abigail tilted her head in response. "Partly. It will give a range for the overall funnel size which should get us started. The second testing phase we're going to need repeat trials with a handful of subjects, to see how much things can vary for an individual; the throat of the funnel needs to be wide enough to accommodate the majority of uh, uses, but we can't make it too wide or the vacuum will be ineffective. It still has the potential to affect the seat position and shape, but not as much as the first test data will. After that, the third phase is developing a fitting procedure for each user, and the fourth will be producing the prototype funnels and testing their use."

"Got it." Alan was scribbling along on his own notepad. "Phases 3 and 4 we'll deal with when we get there. For now, we need to worry about the immediate testing needs. Kira, have you started working with Ginny and Ellen to develop the test setups and associated procedures for the first two phases?"

"I have a list of what we need, and I'm securing one of the labs with fluid and drainage setup" Kira nodded, going through her own notes. "We're going to need confidentiality procedures in place. What we're going to be asking the volunteers to do is quite frankly, a complete invasion of privacy, so we need to make sure that there's no way of people identifying what test they're involved with. Even from us; we need to make sure that when we're getting the data, we can't identify individuals with their anatomy."

"I understand completely," Alan agreed. "I'm going to be getting mag swipe access restricted to the eight of us, so that we have complete control on who enters the lab and when they enter. I know you're going to need help from some of the technicians during setup, but during testing, I don't want anyone not involved to even have a chance of walking through the wrong door. As far as volunteers are concerned..." he turned to Lucille. "I had a feeling we would need something like that. About how many test subjects are we going to need?"

"While I want to say as many as possible, I know that's not realistic." Lucile shrugged. "If we can get two dozen or more, that would be ideal. This is not going to be something that women are going to be jumping at to volunteer for; stating the obvious I know. I imagine that we're going to lose several in between signing the NDA and understanding what we're asking for"

Alan cringed. "Right. We're going to need to make sure that word doesn't slip out on any sensitive details. And I understand the concern about reluctance. We do have some funds that we can allocate for 'encouragement'. If we get 20-30 women, I think we can afford $20 per volunteer. That's almost enough for a textbook or a high class dinner right?"

Abigail nodded, interjecting. "That would certainly help. I'm going to be asking Emily to post notices at the medical school as well; you're going to have a lot of students with more mature attitudes and less qualms about the human body. More likely to take the money as well."

"Makes sense," Alan nodded. "Okay. So we have a path forward, that's good. I need to handle paperwork for the funding and lab space, as well as give an update to Mr. Jones. I'm also going to see if we can acquire any of the original working prototypes. Anyone need me for anything before I go?"

Lucille shook her head. "We'll let you know if we need anything. Emily should be back in the next two hours. Did you want her to report on her findings?

"If she's back before I come to check on you, then sure" Alan nodded. "I know that both you and I can use anything that will help us out on this"

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True to Lucille's word, about an hour and a half later a tentative knock on his open office door interrupted Alan from his paperwork. Emily stood there grinning, a large book and several folders in her hands. "Mr. Bell. I think I found something that will be useful for the design."

Alan raised his eyebrows. "That was fast. What did you find, and where exactly was it? I was in the library for several hours with no luck"

"Well, what I realized" Emily stepped forward to place the book on his desk. "While this is a matter of crew health, the project itself is not. This was in the engineering library, specifically the civil engineering section pertaining to public health"

"Huh. Why didn't I think of that..." Alan pulled the book towards himself. "You're absolutely correct, and I see this..." he flipped open the book. "A history of lavatory and toilet designs. I see you've marked a few of the pages..." he turned to the first one and stared at the picture. "I didn't realize this was a thing."

The picture displayed an old drawing of a concave profiled bowl, attached to a short drainpipe on a wall. A hose on the wall was indicated as for "rinsing" water, and the bottom frame showed several attached in a row against a wall with partitions.

"Female urinals," Emily nodded. "They were apparently somewhat popular in the early 1900's in Europa. You know how they're less self conscious over there. No where near as popular as male urinals today, but apparently there's some places where they still exist. Point is, I'm wondering if one of these old designs could inspire the new funnel shape for women. Some of them are mentioned to specifically reduce the chance of splashback, which seems important here."

Alan nodded, flipping to some of the other tagged pages. "This is excellent. Well done Emily." he looked up at her. "So, still feel like thanking me, after learning what this project is about?"

Emily laughed, tucking away one of her stray bangs behind her ear. "I have to say. I didn't know how to react at first. This wasn't at all what I expected when I handed you my resume at the library. With that being said..." she shrugged. "I can see that this is important work. Someone has to do it, might as well be me. I'm also still thrilled to be indirectly working for FAST."

Alan smiled. "I know the feeling. I had considered applying to them as well previously, but Hatchstone made me an offer that was too good to refuse, so here I am. Sometimes I still consider it, even as well as I'm doing here"

"Really?" Emily asked. "You seem pretty well settled here; I'm surprised it crosses your mind."

"It's the principle behind it." Alan shrugged. "FAST is all about the advancement of humanity, for humanity. When I went into engineering, one of the courses we had to take was in ethics. All the responsibility that lands on your shoulders when you become an engineer. Both in terms of integrity of your work, as well as what you use your talents for. For example, I had made up my mind that no matter where my engineering degree took me, I could never see myself working for a defense contractor. Designing weapons?" he shook his head. "Not something I would feel comfortable with knowing my work had contributed to."

Emily nodded. "I understand the ethics concern. I know Lucille was talking about that a lot, since we're going to be asking something difficult from our test subjects. I imagine this must be incredibly awkward for you, considering the matter at hand"

Alan laughed nervously. "I mean...at first maybe? But honestly now at this point, I'm mostly just worried about making sure I don't offend anyone else on the team. I imagine having a male in the room is going to be incredibly awkward for a lot of this, so I need to make sure I'm being as proper and professional as I can."

The corner of Emily's mouth perked up. "I can tell. I think you don't have much to worry about, regarding that. I know I haven't worked with you much, but you don't seem like the kind of man to act immaturely about this. And I can tell that the rest of the ladies trust you, so that's good enough for me."

"I appreciate the kind words" Alan laughed. "Please feel free to speak your mind though if something makes you uncomfortable. Last thing I want is to have your internship go poorly because of work environment concerns"

Emily shook her head. "No concerns. Though, I am curious..." a questioning look came over her face. "When I got back to the conference room and showed the team the book I found, Amelia started cursing up a storm under her breath in...what I assume was Highlandic? Or I think it was cursing. She seemed annoyed about something, but got over it quickly and got really friendly afterwards. Do you have any idea what that could have been about?"

Alan blinked. "No, I don't know. But I wouldn't worry too much. I've known her for almost my entire time here at Hatchstone. Amelia is a character, but if she was actually angry or annoyed with you, she'd make no secret of it. I'm guessing she realized something about her work that needed a correction based on what you found, which is time consuming. She's a perfectionist that way."

"Oh, that makes sense," Emily nodded. "Anyways. Thank you for talking with me. It gives me a lot of perspective about things after I'm done with school."

"Of course Emily, happy to be of help" Alan pushed the book back towards her. "I believe we've got less than an hour left today, but see if you can help the rest of the team with anything today before clocking out. I need to finish up here, so I likely won't see you until tomorrow."

"Okay. Have a good night Mr. Bell," Emily waved before heading out.

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The next few days at the lab were hectic but productive. The group consisting of Ellen, Kira, and Lucille focused on setting up the lab space, while Amelia and Ginny created the lab documentation including procedures and diagrams. Emily and Abigail had posted notices about paid research at both Dryport University as well as the local Community College, and soon Alan found himself in the lab surveying the final results of their work.

The 'test stand' was relatively simple. Outwardly it was a large metal box with several attached cameras facing the interior and an attached bidet hose. The top of the box featured both a conventional toilet seat as well as two foot rests directly adjacent, for tests where the user was squatting rather than seated. Several rails were mounted to the box so that users could steady themselves as needed, About 4 feet in front of it on a stand, a box with four lights in a cross pattern sat at eye level. A path from the test stand to the test subject door was lined with standing curtain rods, leading all the way back and past the stand, though they were currently pulled back for ease of explanation.

"So to start, when a test subject walks into the lab, through this door, curtains on these rods will make it so that no one in the observation room is capable of seeing who they are." Ginny described the process to Alan, following along as she indicated each step of the process.

"Once they've taken a seat, the light box will allow us to non-verbally communicate whether we need them to shift forward, backward, left or right, to ensure that the cameras catch everything. We'll light up all four to tell them they're in a good position. They will then press this button," she held up a small plastic box attached to the stand via a cable. "To let us know that they're ready to start the test, so that we can begin recording. After they're done, they can clean themselves off with the attached bidet hose, use the provided sanitary wipes if desired, and they will leave the same way they came in. The door will be locked between test samples so that we can clean the stand for the next user if needed."

"Okay, great. This all makes sense." Alan replied. "Ellen, are you happy with the setup for recording?"

"Yes," Ellen nodded. "If you look inside," she opened the hinged top of the test stand. "We've got four cameras, with lighting. All of them are water proofed for obvious reasons. One for a view from the side, one from the front, one from the back, and one looking directly upward. The grid pattern on the interior sides of the box will allow us to take recordings for later, and project whatever the cameras catch onto tracing paper, so we can get accurate angle measurements of the stream."

Alan swallowed as he realized that Amelia's demonstration earlier in the week was tame compared to the data they'd be recording. He'd noticed that there was a very silent tension in the air as everyone attempted to speak as clinically as possible regarding what would be a very personal moment for the test subjects. It made sense, as how else could you approach a situation like this? It was still noticeable though.

"Very good." he replied, then turned back to Ginny. "Do we have the final procedure for each test subject ready to go?"

"Yes we do," Ginny handed him a laminated copy of the sheet being given to the test subjects. "That covers everything I've told you thus far. The waiting room outside of the lab has direct access to the outside of the building, so no one from inside Hatchstone other than us will be able to see who enters the testing area."

She walked over to the doorway and opened it to show the setup to Alan.

"When they arrive, test subjects will be given a card with a random number on it." she gestured to a basket of plastic wafers on a stand by the doorway.

"This will be their test ID and it will be the only way to link them to the data collected. They will be instructed to come with a full bladder, on a day that they are not menstruating, with the understanding that they will provide two samples, one seated, one squatting. There is no particular order that subjects need to go in, other than that we need those two samples by the end of the week. We've provided several couches, chairs and desks, as we wanted to give them the option to stay and give both test samples on the same day if that suited their schedule. We're providing coffee, water, tea, and juice on the side table in case they need help with filling up again."

Ginny turned and gestured to the card Alan was holding "Once they're ready to submit a test sample, they will ring the bell next to the doorway and get their instructions. This will let us know to remotely unlock the door so that they can enter." She indicated the simple doorbell button that had been installed. "They will then enter their test ID number using the keypad, so that those of us in the control room will know who the data belongs to. They then follow the procedure we talked about earlier for getting into position, letting us know when they're about to go, and then finishing up. Several of us will be in this room or directly outside to assist with questions or other concerns that the test subjects might have. We will not know who has what number, either, and the test recordings will be stored in numeric order, so they'll be naturally randomized."

"Okay, great" Alan nodded in satisfaction. "And we are separating the team between the waiting room and control room, correct? That way there's no "cross contamination" where someone could put a face to anatomy."

Ginny nodded. "Yes. The waiting room team will be Abigail, Amelia, Emily, and myself. The control room team will be you, Kira, Lucille, and Ellen." she glanced at him. "To be clear. The test subjects are being made aware of the fact that it won't be just females reviewing the data we collect. But it's one thing for a woman to hear that a man will see a video of her urinating, and another thing to see you standing in the room right before they make one of the most intimate videos of their life. That's why I put you in the control room."

Alan nodded, letting out a sigh. "I figured as much. And believe me I understand the sensitivity of this subject. Please let me know if there's anything I should do to help all of you out, if I'm making things uncomfortable".

Amelia patted him on the back. "Alan, please don't worry. We know you're doing your best here. Haven't had a single complaint about you thus far, and you know I can't shut up if I have a problem with something."