Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

21 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Don Pettit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don Pettit is both the smartest and craziest man I've ever met.
    He's built all sorts of crazy gadgets in space.

    Years ago he took the space station's vacuum cleaner into reverse and rode around on it, Slim Pickins style through the space station.
    He also smelts his own metals in a forge in his back yard to make various things.

    1. Re:Don Pettit by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Insightful

          This is an excellent demonstration of why we need to further our space travel. It may seem trivial, but to get real advancements in space require people there. Theory is nice and all, but there's so much to learn from practice.

          A better example of what I'm saying is thrust. There are plenty of people on the ground theorizing about the bigger and better thrust systems. There are some neat ideas. People would be able to work through them faster by actually being there, and not only doing the specified projects, but their personal pet projects. For example, someone may discover that a windmill style device for turning solar winds into usable energy, and cosmic could be converted into some usable fuel.

          A cup is something. It's an example of what can be done from interest or necessity. Something that we're rapidly abandoning, as we watch manned space travel dwindle down to nothing.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    2. Re:Don Pettit by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Interesting

          Don't confuse government spending with the worth of the projects. There have been an abundance of amazing technologies that have come about due to the space programs. We'd have even more if we had many generations of spacecraft, building upon known technology. From Mercury to the Shuttle, there were tremendous advancements. What would it be like if we had multiple generations of spacecraft, and real space based societies?

          Antarctica has a population in the thousands during the winter. Space? The most I could find was 13. That's not a huge population for a space faring population. That's a camping trip, without the woods. To put it in comparison, 0.0000002% of the world population was in space at the same time. Once.

          No one does fun little experiments like "What happens if you space a water balloon?". There are important things to know, and until more people are up there doing oddball experiments, we won't discover 'em.

          And, I'm all for spacing a water balloon. A thermite filled balloon launched towards the atmosphere should make a pretty light show. It might need to be a pretty big balloon. Lots of room to experiment. :)
         

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    3. Re:Don Pettit by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      I'm sorry but you are wrong and here is why: We have learned more about our system from a single NASA probe than from 40 years of /kicks on reverb/ "Meatbags in spaaaace!" /kills pedal/ because we meatbags are incredibly fragile creatures that have an insane amount of crap we have to have brought along with us, things like food, water, toilets, a place to sleep, all of this adds weight and with engines that frankly aren't really any more advanced than the old Saturn rockets its INSANELY expensive per pound, and because of the first reason we are pretty much stuck at LEO and finally with the entire right wing signing Grover Norquist's "No new taxes on teh rich EVAR!" pledge good luck doing anything about the debt we are drowning in which means no more money for NASA, hell look at how many are having a shitfit at Obama calling to LOWER corporate taxes simply because he wants to close the loopholes that give companies like GE billions in return for nothing.

      So we have to accept some things 1.- The NASA budget will NEVER be back up to the glory days of the cold war, 2.- With an economy that will most likely be finally killed outright when gas hits $5 a gallon we won't be able to raise the budget for NASA and 3.- it will cost billions to get us a new rocket thanks to sen Porkus and Congressman kickbackman wanting to "bring home the bacon" by having some piece of it built in their district and they will vigorously cockblock anything they can't get their snouts in.

      In the end we really have only one choice, and that is stay on the course NASA is on and concentrate on probes. Sure we can bum rides with the Russians but that is only a band aid as their tech is getting long in the tooth too (Soyuz is what? 40+ years old?) and all it will take is a few more massive fails and they may end up grounded for good. So our only real choice is to continue to get the absolute most bang for the buck we can and that is small and light probes we can launch on Atlas and Delta rockets. Maybe if we had a congress that gave a shit about the country as a whole instead of their own enrichment we might actually be able to do something, but what are the odds of that happening? About the same as you winning the lotto while being struck by lightning.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:Don Pettit by Hamsterdan · · Score: 2

      There's no oil in space

      --
      I've got better things to do tonight than die.
    5. Re:Don Pettit by noh8rz2 · · Score: 2

      this ac was modded troll, although he has an insightful and valid point (if also a little bit of snark). every dollar spent in one place is taken away from another place. The space program is cool and makes cups, but is it the best investment of research dollars? Compared to other potential research topics, or other uses for the money? I don't know the answer, but the question stands.

    6. Re:Don Pettit by Sperbels · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, let's toss families out of their houses, because hey, space cups.

      What? You think that money spent on NASA is toss into a spaceship and blasted into space never to be seen again? No, that money is going right back into businesses here on earth, and back into people's pockets. And we have a cutting edge aerospace industry that makes those robotic probes possible. It's produces something useful. Banks do fine on their own. They're simply wringing money out of the American tax payer because they can simply buy the right people to make it legal. NASA puts men on the fucking moon when we give them money. When we give money to banks they create economic disasters and a handful of really rich guys.

  2. that's great by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I didn't stop to think about the problem of getting the liquid to your mouth, I figured the hard part was getting it to go into and stay into the cup.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
    1. Re:that's great by Anonymus · · Score: 2

      A lot of ~really~ smart guys know that life is what you make of it. There are plenty of ~really~ smart guys who would gladly take a 5% chance of dying to experience something they've dreamed of since childhood, and that only a ridiculously small number of humans ever get to do.

    2. Re:that's great by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 2

      But the big problem is that we send humans at all. It's a terrible waste of resources.

      I couldn't disagree more. Some day humans will have to and will want to leave earth and live on space stations and/or other planets, and the knowledge we collect now about how the human body can survive in such environments will be vital. This might happen soon or in many hundred years from now, but it will happen. Perhaps we will also have artificial gravity, better medical support, and all kinds of other things that make life in space easier until then but in the end all of these gimmicks will build upon prior research including the research we do now.

      In the long run learning how to put humans into space is much more important than running experiments that could be automatized.

  3. 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.

    --
    Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
    altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
  4. 6 astronauts, 1 cup. by Vandil+X · · Score: 4, Funny

    Rule 34, baby.

    --
    Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
    1. Re:6 astronauts, 1 cup. by Dyinobal · · Score: 4, Funny

      You did not...See this is why we can't have nice things people! This is why we can't have nice things.

    2. Re:6 astronauts, 1 cup. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually you jest, but there is a video of two astro-naughties testing out which physical positions and acts would work in space... and NASA refuses to release the video(good thing IMHO) but basically doggy style was the only position that worked, since the guy could hold the girl's hips and thrust her that way. All other positions would require some special sleeping bag type solution where they would have handles on the inside.

      Of course this was done for scientific purposes... to see about future human reproduction... but still... kinda cool IMHO

    3. Re:6 astronauts, 1 cup. by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      Gravity exists. But you are in free fall falling back towards the earth at exactly the same rate, so you don't perceive the effects of gravity. But "zero gee" does not mean the absence of gravity - only the absence of its observed effects.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  5. A Matter of Timing by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you had a cup of coffee every morning on the Space Station, your heart would probably explode.

    (the sun 'rises' every ~90 minutes for the ISS)

    --
    If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
  6. Similar to my work pattern... by gwolf · · Score: 2

    I usually get a cup of coffee every 60-90 minutes. Do I get to be an astronaut?

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

    capillary action is a manifestation of surface tension

    --
    ~.~
    I'm a peripheral visionary.
  8. 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

    --
    ~.~
    I'm a peripheral visionary.
  9. 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.

  10. The ISS fuels creativity and imagination by KingofSpades · · Score: 2

    They must really bo bored up there: his collegue created a lego replica of the ISS... within the ISS.

    Pretty cool, I think.