American Way of Life Clashes with Brits in Iraq and Russians in Space
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Mockup of Space Station Toilet
From Iraq to outer space, America’s soldiers and astronauts are having a tough time co-existing with their British and Russian counterparts. In Basra, where U.S. troops have been slowly taking over fro withdrawing British units, American GIs have had to “rough it” on the British military base because of an absence of Pizza Hut, hamburgers, soda, and wi-fi Internet access. Such amenities are common on U.S. bases, but not British ones, which instead serve “funny” tasting sausages, not to mention tea and different types of squash with meals. “We have a lot more fatty stuff,” U.S. Sergeant Danny Choinard told the British media. “That is why you see fat American soldiers and why British soldiers are so slender.”
Meanwhile, high above in earth’s orbit, American astronauts are no longer sharing their food, or gym or toilet for that matter, on the International Space Station (ISS) with Russian cosmonauts. The change has come about, says veteran cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, because the ISS is more of a commercial operation now. When the space station first went up in the 1990s, Americans and Russians shared everything, but beginning in 2003, Moscow started billing Washington for sending its astronauts into space, which led to the delineation of such things as “national toilets” and other segregated elements of the ISS.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
US Troops in Iraq Forced to Rough It on British Basra Base (by Deborah Hynes, Times of London)
National Toilets’ Complicate Life in Space (by Michael Schwirtz and Robert Mackey, New York Times)
“Toilet Row” Lowers Space Morale (BBC News)
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