Important milestone! Yes this is a terrible photo, but it marks a historic moment: we reached 40 000 uses on the… onboard toilet. One of the most important systems (if it breaks, we stop everything until we’ve repaired it). You wouldn't send people into space without a toilet and clean sanitation is part of @UN Sustainable Development Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. One of the subtle designs of the #MIssionAlpha patch is to include the colours of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, that I want to highlight during my mission. The reason we track how many times the toilet has been used is because it is such a vital piece of equipment and, just like a car, or aircraft, it needs maintenance at every certain number of km, hours, or uses in this case. In the future, for longer trips to Mars as well as on Earth we need to recycle our waste and grow food or turn it in resources to sustain life. At the moment we send our solid waste back to Earth on a supply vehicle…