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Microgravity Coffee Cup

Posted by timothy on from the shattering-all-my-conceptions dept.

BuzzSkyline writes "Despite the fact that astronauts have been eating and drinking out of tubes for decades, it's actually possible to drink from an open-top cup in space. Astronaut Don Pettit recently downlinked a video that shows him slurping coffee from a cup he kludged out of plastic sheet. It appears to work pretty much like a cup on Earth, even in freefall aboard the International Space Station, thanks to capillary action."

4 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Coincidentally by Kell+Bengal · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is also how manoeuvering thruster fuel tanks work, so that engines in microgravity get a continuous flow of fuel without need for ullage motors.

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  2. Re:Not just capillary action. by nadaou · · Score: 3, Informative

    capillary action is a manifestation of surface tension

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  3. Re:Not just capillary action. by nadaou · · Score: 4, Informative

    I said it was a manifestation of it, not that the two were equivalent terms.

    I highly recommend the MIT video series by Asher Shapiro on the subject:

    http://web.mit.edu/hml/ncfmf.html

    "Surface Tension in Fluid Mechanics"

    the videos are excellent (and that's a big understatement), but if you are in a hurry just have a look at the section talking about contact angles in the film notes: http://web.mit.edu/hml/ncfmf/04STFM.pdf

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    ~.~
    I'm a peripheral visionary.
  4. Re:Not just capillary action. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    capillary action is a manifestation of surface tension

    Where are the capillaries? Better to say it's just surface tension at work here, and the summary is wrong.