--- description: Many astronauts say that the most spectacular sight they have seen in space is their own planet, a fertile blue ball glowing in a black void. Apollo 9 Astronaut Russell Schweickart has a somewhat... title: Americana: Space Spectacular image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Americana: Space Spectacular by [TIME](/author/time/) Jan 16, 1978 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Jan 16, 1978 5:00 AM CUT Many astronauts say that the most spectacular sight they have seen in space is their own planet, a fertile blue ball glowing in a black void. Apollo 9 Astronaut Russell Schweickart has a somewhat different view. In an interview in Co-Evolution Quarterly, a magazine devoted to ecology, Schweickart says, among other things, that perhaps the most beautiful sight in space is a urine dump. A urine dump? It seems that when orbiting astronauts release into space their voided urine, the liquid instantly freezes into millions of tiny ice crystals, which form a hemisphere and spray out in all directions from the exit nozzle. The same thing would happen to ordinary water, but none is ever dumped; it is all recycled through the spacecraft. “The most beautiful sight in orbit, or one of the most beautiful sights, is a urine dump at sunset,” says Schweickart. “It’s really spectacular.” Well, as the French say, one man’s meat is another man’s poisson. Americana: Space Spectacular ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6853220/americana-space-spectacular/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6853220/americana-space-spectacular/"},"headline":"Americana: Space Spectacular","datePublished":"1978-01-16T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-13T14:42:14.717Z","description":"Many astronauts say that the most spectacular sight they have seen in space is their own planet, a fertile blue ball glowing in a black void. Apollo 9 Astronaut Russell Schweickart has a somewhat...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6853220/americana-space-spectacular/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6853220/americana-space-spectacular/","name":"Americana: Space Spectacular"}}]}] ```