International Space Station tests new garbage bag

Set phasers to trash. The International Space Station has tested a new method of waste disposal: putting their trash a ‘specially designed waste container’ and throwing it out of a ‘commercial airlock’, i.e., they put their garbage in a bag and threw it out the window. But with more high-tech gizmos or something, and the benefit of the bag burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Until now, astronauts aboard the ISS had to hoard their garbage until a cargo ship docked, where the garbage was taken back to Earth or the ship was scuttled by burning it up in the Earth’s atmosphere, or the astronauts just chucked it away on a spacewalk. Apparently the first test went ‘swimmingly’, and Nanoracks (who designed both the airlock and bag) are now considering adding this garbage bag technology to their planned space station Starlab.