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Corkscrew Cups Could Keep Space Drinks Flowing
holy_calamity writes "A Canadian chemical engineer has a novel solution to containing liquids in space. He has been experimenting with corkscrews of ribbon-like material that keep liquids suspended in their center while in microgravity. This effect is caused by the surface tension of the liquids. The helical containers allow the fluid to be sucked out of the coil in one go. In more conventional shapes, such as coffee cups, interaction between the container and the liquid's internal pressure makes the beverage break into annoying globules you have to chase with a straw."
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
"In more conventional shapes, such as coffee cups, interaction between the container and the liquid's internal pressure makes the beverage break into annoying globules you have to chase with a straw."
Yes, but that's half the fun right there of going into space. The other is passing space gas.
And also begs the question, what shape would the corkscrew opener be for that? the shape of a bottle perhaps?
....sucking coils! mmmmmmmm
Stop it you're totally freaking me out man
Coffee in space?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I believe it's called a Silly Straw. I have one sitting right next to my Tang.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
...that my crazy straw collection may actually be worth something?
Why not just suck water out of a sponge? This is twice as good as a silly straw (aka "corckscrew cup") because you could use it to clean up spills as well as prevent them.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Nothing new here. However the application in space is. Here is something similar idea:
http://www.orientaltrading.com/application?origin=page.jsp&namespace=browse&event=link.itemDetails&categoryId=377320&BP=8109&sku=70%2F4498&cm_mmc=YHS-_-Party%20Supplies-_-Tableware-_-Disney%20Cars%20Crazy%20Straws
http://www.toyconnection.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TC&Product_Code=STRAW&qts=google&qtk=crazy%20straws
http://www.jeffbots.com/r2d2cooler.html
Wouldn't a Capri Sun work just fine? Just a packet of liquid with no rigid structure which contracts to always contain the liquid...
Reminds me of that old (and false) joke about Americans spending a million dollars to invent a pen that can write in space, while the Russians used a pencil.
Wouldn't a "Capri Sun" solution work just as easily? Put the liquid in an air-tight bag with a straw.
Ah, solutions looking for problems.
If you keep the liquid in a tube smaller than the globule it will break into, it won't break into a globule? Next thing, they'll be supplying these "astronauts" with "air" Brilliant!
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
*coughRTFAcough*
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Surface tension arises from cohesion and not adhesion. The two types of liquids were probably chosen such that the cohesive forces in the experiment were similar to that for water in air. Adhesive forces may exist between the liquids, but should not affect the experiment. Cohesive forces can be calculated by measuring the angle of the meniscus (if the adhesive forces between the liquid and its container are known).
Just callin' it like I see it.
mmm... garbules.
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
Sounds like a space-age beer bong
It's really cool and clever... but how do you fill it on earth with all its delicious gravity? Unless you load it up *in* space, but that doesn't really solve the problem does it?
This device would ruin all the fun.
As if we didn't have enough trouble with drunken diapered astronauts, now NASA's come up with a way to have martinis in space! They should have stuck with Jello Shots in a Tube, TangDrivers, and secretly fermenting raisins from their Space Lunches. Not to mention huffing escaping gas from the air conditioning system. Yes, these plain-vanilla pilots and scientists have a wild side. The dewy-eyed novices on all-male flights awarded their first "Member of 50-Mile High Club" patch. The ones with a secret tattoo of Richard Simmons on their lower back saying "Your Space Buddy!" The "NASA Says Save Water in Space, Shower With Your Co-Pilot" ecology program. Oh, the horror. Cover your eyes, children.
Here's where I show my ignorance...but what the hey.
I looked at the pictures--they're double-helixes. I have a few of those in me. Now, I know that my DNA isn't a drinking straw (at least, I think I know...), but I'm curious to know if all that water we're theoretically made of is affected. I mean, does osmosis occur within DNA? If it does, would this do something to our genetic bits and bytes? In space?
I, for one, welcome our twisted new micro-gravity overlords.
The future WILL look like (1977) Buck Rogers and/or (1978) Battlestar Galactica when we get twirly space cups.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Screw that.
Wah Sig!
So the solution is to package the liquid in a long, flexible straw, and then coil the straw up into the shape of a cup.
Clever, clever!
(Of course, we have had a number of cases where we did extensive research, and when someone finally found a simple solution to a problem, everyone who saw it said "That's obvious." This happened with things like the zipper, barbed wire, and the paper clip, all of which took decades of experimenting before someone stumbled across the simple way to do it. Simple solutions to problems are often much more difficult to see than complex solution.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
two girls, a camera, soothing music, and a space ship.
This could represent a new way of thinking of just not what our containers hold but how the containers interact with what they hold.
It probably won't amount to much for terrestrials but who knows? Sometimes it's the seemingly boring inventions which have a wide impact.
Would this work on earth as a sippy cup that won't leak?
great vid! The water droplets part was amazing!
No silly, you use chopsticks!
If you notice the bag of tea is exactly like that - a pouch with a straw.
What's wrong with just sucking the juice in microgravity from a sponge? or from one of those Capri Sun juice bags?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
...at least I think it's original.
I'm just stunned at someone coming up with a totally new way to do something simple (hold liquid) in a simple way (in a container of the right shape) based on a familiar principle (surface tension).
In a sense, the idea of using surface tension to hold fluids is not new--think of a sponge or a towel--but getting cup-like and pipe-like functionality is.
I've no doubt that if humans had evolved in zero gravity this would have been discovered back around the same time as clay pots and chipped flint arrowheads, but as it is they didn't.
It's nice to know there are still inventions to be invented that don't rely on a billion microchips and a million lines of code.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Like the ones they use for little kids' drinks, they can contain liquids and prevent spills ....
Have gnu, will travel.
What happens when it gets knocked against something? I bet that you'd end up with droplets all over the place: can just see the astronauts suing because their groins got burnt (shouldn't be putting coffee there anyway).
It's an open container - so the contents can spill if the container and content experience shear that overcomes surface tension when the fluid is at an exposed edge. and because it's a helix it's all exposed edge!
I'd go for the squeezy-bulb approach any time. ... Ha! - squeezy.
How is that different from straws and containers with lots of surface area?
Meh, nevertheless, my wife still leaves the wet sponge laying in the sink. Absolutely disgusting. However, we've never gotten sick from it, it just smells bad.
I'm gratified to see that Crazy Straw technology has evolved...in space!
"Look, Smithers! I'm Davy Crockett!"
Did you mean: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation? Results 1 - 10 of about 28,400,000 for Lazer
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
When I go to space, I just bring cups with internal centrifuges. Well, that and popsicles. I've never hand any trouble, though I've found it difficult to throw my cups in a straight line.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Shouldn't that be centre. :)
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Reminds me of a powerful suction effect, similar to a whirlpool or tornado...Similar principles?
What about those Gatoraid bottles that have the valve in the cap?
those don't spill unless you squeeze the bottle, or suck on it hard enough.
Come on, gatoraid! just make a tang-flavoured valve bottle and score yourselves a nice nig NASA contract.
(ps. I'm leaving the "suck on it hard enough" line completly open....any takers?)
-I only code in BASIC.-
And he is not wrong for doing so. So if you say something incorrect often enough, it'll become true?
You can't take the sky from me...
Take a look at this cross-section of one of the more complex models.
(warning deep linked image from a site which contains NSFW material)
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
I first read this as "Cork screwups could keep space drinks flowing".
It didn't even seem weird cuz a cork screwup would indeed keep drinks flowing in space.
Welcome to the International Space Station, where the Corkscrew Bar never closes!
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Someone mentioned sponges. I was thinking along a different line, that if you have a long thin straw especially if the reservoir is stiff maybe it is hard to suck it out. So if you had more openings at the mouth end it would multiply the ease with which you could extract liquid (or is it really just herding barely connected globules into the air floating in the middle of the ribbon, in which case not so hard).
This kind of a tree-like network could be three dimensional, like a rock or well a shower head you stick in your mouth. (Maybe more the size of a thumb, but with holes all over it) and connected to a thin tube that is coiled up, or maybe inserted into a pouch. Or you could do it two-dimensionally, a series of flat tubes that branch like a tree, and then roll that up into a cone (not a hollow cone, more like a stromboli, so it ends with a solid looking spiral of compressed pipe-paper with all the open ends towards the mouth. This might cut the mouth if it isn't made of soft material though.
Of course not knowing the real issues this could be useless, but if you did have a vessel containing liquid that was not automatically deforming (or it deforms but not so much), then you could accept making it hard to extract the liquid if you also have a system like this shower head drink nozzle that hydraulically magnifies your ability to suck the liquid out. You might even be able to pinch it closed and then when you open it the liquid pours out naturally. This wouldn't work with drinks that have globs of things in it.
There also is a thing that's a hit on the streets, it's tapioca cubes in ice tea, in a plastic cup sealed with a plastic membrane lid. You stick a very wide straw into it through the lid. Possibly this would work in orbit especially if you could include a cloth spiral inside the straw and curve (coil) the straw once to force globules to follow the path.
where exactly is a "space tourist" supposed to go?
1. it takes around 7 months to get to mars which is the closest planet- I don't know about you, but I hate having to deal with long flights- I go once a year from the west coast to the east coast and I freakin' hate dealing with airports and sitting in a damn plane for hours at a time- I think I would go ballistic after 7 months in a commercial airliner- that's like prison.
2. what exactly are you supposed to see? putting aside a trip to mars itself, no matter where you go on your "space tour" outside it will pretty much be the same thing.... space and stars- once you get away from earth there really isn't anything that spectacular it just looks like... well, stars. Putting the boredom of the outside world, let's say you built a space station resort- what would be so much better about it that would make it better than a resort on earth? everything will be prefabricated and there will prolly be like, 5 starbucks on it (hey, it's better, it's packed in spirals)if you are tired of the resort there is NO WHERE to go, and if you don't like it it takes you FOREVER to get back home.
3. cost- no one will be able to afford to go into space ever unless we have some sort of new propulsion device that doesn't cost so damned much and doesn't rip apart the vehicle on takeoff. spaceflight is damnes expensive- the space shuttle costs 450 million dollars per flight- that means in order to break even, if you could cram 450 people on a space shuttle (that is if you ignore the fact that it would have to burn more fuel to pack those ppl in) each one would have to pay 1 million dollars to go... if it were a commercial enterprise, each would more likely pay 2 to 3 million per seat.
no offense, but I think that considering the comfort of "space tourists" is putting the cart before the horse a bit- we should instead be thinking about how and why we want to get somewhere before how comortable it is doing it.
I think I arrive too late in this discussion for my comment to be visible, but I'd like to point out that this is just on more application of one of the most important inventions ever (along with fire, the wheel, gears...)
One more thing we owe to Babylon apparently : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw#History
(anyone know wether it also appeared in other civilisations, pre-colombian americas or other?)
You could, of course, say "twice per month" or "once per two months" in the first place and thus avoid the confusion. Now, admittedly, these constructs are hideous abominations and should partyvanned, and perhaps even gendowned, to remove them from the sight of humanity. On the other hand, the price of using a living language is that people use it for actual communication, rather than for displaying their awesome level of sophistication, so they sometimes change it to better suit their needs, or just for lolz. Perhaps you should simply speak in Latin from now on ?
But remember, these /b/-tards will one day be in the same position as you are now, frothing at the gall the younger generation has in daring to change the language ! And they, too, will be considered lunatics and ignored, besides an occasional sarcastic reply such as this one. Still, you might pause the final infinite loop you have entered to laugh at them for a moment, just like they laughed at you.
LOL 0wn3d.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
...to better suit their needs, or just for lolz
:)
Shouldn't that be 'lulz'? Language is fun
I don't understand why they don't have more of a "juice box" design. Put the drink in a flexible bag with a hole for the straw. There's no air in it, and air doesn't go in when you drink, it just collapses the bag until it's empty. No chasing globs of liquid with the straw. Seems too obvious for them to have overlooked, so why not?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Exactly the point I was coming here to make.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
There are good reasons not to use pencils in microgravity. One of them is that pencils produce graphite dust.
Of course it's expensive. However, you underestimate how much some people want to go to space. There have been five individuals so far who have paid their own way to get into space. There are over a hundred people who have placed down payments to reserve seats on the Virgin Galactic suborbital flights. Those aren't EVEN orbital, but you get the view and you get the microgravity, and that seems to be enough to warrant its $200,000 price tag. Don't underestimate a) how much money some people make, and b) eccentric markets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tourism#List_of_flown_space_tourists
I want to know how they got the beer out of the can and into the corkscrew in the first place. Wouldn't the head kind of get in the way ?
...to not let something like microgravity to get in the way of his drinking. Labatt Blue, anyone?
Oh, no, sir. You've misunderstood me completely. I'm all for changing the language when it makes it more concise, more expressive, more descriptive...better. I'm against changing it in ways that make it more ambiguous and less clear. I'm not against evolution, because evolution is change that makes things better (on the whole—it's not against trying things out). And people like me ensure that evolution is what we get...not degradation.
Let's take my attitude to the extreme. Language gets better a lot faster. Let's take the attitude of the poster to whom I was responding to the extreme. We end up with two words that can mean anything at all. (Probably the f-word and dude.)
Duuuude. That's totally f'd up.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.