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How To Make Espresso In Space
In a story that's sure to bring to the surface the long-debunked myth of an over-elaborate NASA quest to create a pen to operate in space, Wired reports that the coffee situation aboard the International Space Station is about to improve: the station will be getting a 20kg, custom designed Lavazza espresso machine, to be delivered along with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. Among other differences from terrestrial espresso machines: the resulting beverage must be pumped into a straw-friendly bag rather than a demitasse. I wonder if there could be some way to adapt a (much lighter) Aeropress for space purposes, as a backup.
Now I want a machine that can make an iced latte in zero G.
No need. They only send REAL men and worn into space.
I wonder if they will sell them special space-rated coffee beans at highly enflated prices in order to move any profits back to tax havens?
(See http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/targ... if you miss the joke)
How do they add sugar!!!
Look, I love coffee as much as the next guy but when they are replacing 20kg of scientific payload with a 20kg coffee machine (plus the pods and waste management), they might have their priorities a little skewed. If they'd spent the money on produging a better freeze dried espresso, all of humanity could benefit.
Because it keeps you sharp! Of course, taking a note out of Captain Janeway's playbook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
" to be delivered along with Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti " it requires a barista?
NASA makes drinking water from piss up there. I wonder if it has repercussions for the taste buds. Espisso?
composition and concentrative properties of human urine
By the way my latest OSHW machine can do drinking water from urine too:
Twibright Distillcooker
funny, I'm mainly a tea drinker but the pansy coffee drinkers at work can't take the smoked lapsang souchong and colonial black tea I like, say they're too strong
I never got the whole syrup thing. Coffee needs no flavoring. It has a flavor already. Its flavor is called COFFEE.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Then why the espresso machine? REAL men chew the beans.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For some reason, I find the idea of having a shot of real, hot espresso in space heartwarming.
A little bit of home, when you're up so very high above it..
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Should introduce them to the coffee my mom used to make. The recipe for it ends in "and if the horseshoe sinks you didn't use enough coffee".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No need. They only send REAL men and worn into space.
What the hell's a "worn"?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
but combine with the other divine flavor and caffenie/theobromine agent in the universe, and you have mocha
My brother always said his friend's family would make several pots of coffee per day, but not empty the old grounds until night. Just put a new scoopful on top. So the coffee got progressively more robust throughout the day.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Heh, that sounds like the coffee made in Sweden or Finland.
It's always funny to see people from around europe and north america try to drink coffee as made in Sweden or Finland, while Swedes and Finns generally regard coffee made by anyone else as too watery.
When I was in Kosovo, with the Swedish KFOR unit, we had some people from the US 502nd PIR come over to to our PX/café to try our coffee, and most of them had to thin it out to drink it, they weren't used to having it that strong. And they didn't believe us when we told them that it was not a special military brewing, but instead just ordinary brewing as most swedes who drink coffee would appreciate it.
Common complaints from tourists is that even McDonalds and Starbucks coffee in Sweden is way too strong.
REAL men chew the beans.
Hard guys pass the beans through their own intestinal tract, Kopi Luwak style, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K... . . .
. . . and then chew them.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The feds should have spent that blowing up more civilians and occupying places that don't want us there. Over $5 trillion wasted, and Iraq is about to fall again. Fuck, I'll take coffee in space any day of the week over what that stuff is usually spent on.
A worm/human hybrid-- they are similar in a lot of ways to to Dougal Dixon's Homo caelestis, but as with a lot o Biopreperat's work, the ethics are a bit muddled, so the worn program tries to keep a low profile.
>calls people plebs for adding crap to coffee
>drinks macchiato
Coffee black, or go home.
I must say, I really don't get what you mean by Finnish coffee being stronger. When I moved to Finland to study, after living for some time in espresso- and Turkish-coffee-dominated countries, I was surprised to see that Finns were using the same watery drip coffee process as Americans. The only really unusual thing about coffee here is that people drink rather more of it than elsewhere.
The Space Station is at 14.7 PSI (sea level). It will boil at 373.15 Kelvin just like in Miami or Hawaii.
See: https://web.archive.org/web/20061114010931/http://www.nasaexplores.com/show2_5_8a.php?id=04-032&gl=58
Ah. Now I get it why mom said the only good coffee she ever got (aside of her own) was during our stay in Sweden.
Personally, I do without coffee. But she pretty much couldn't exist without her 3-4 liters a day.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They would have to boil the water in a pressurized container
You can't even get a good cup of tea or coffee on Mt Everest, let alone in space.
Considering how much it would cost to develop such a machine for such a small niche market, this is probably the most cost-effective solution.
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Coffee needs no flavoring. It has a flavor already. Its flavor is called COFFEE.
Is that you, Sid?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Not doubting you but it doesn't matter what the ambient pressure is kept at.
This will be an entirely enclosed system. That mean it can be presurized independent of the local atmosphere. Steam escaping would condisate potentially causing problems not to mention gravity anr floating water. So it is enclosed and likely already able to handle its own pressure containment.
No. But I can very well relate to him. I'm old, jaded and can remember the times when life was good and code was C.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
One way to get around the difficulties with zero gravity for eating would be to install a "hamster wheel" inside the space station which would give at least the Moon's level of gravity, i.e. about a sixth of Earth's gravity, or the surface gravity of Mars, which is about 38% of Earth's. Of course, this would disturb zero-gravity experiments due to the inevitable "gravity noise" from the hamster wheel, but some sort of isolation mechanism could be introduced. After all, whenever astronauts move around, they are introducing "gravity noise" into zero-gravity experiments. So it can't be that bad. And the hamster wheel could be helpful with gyroscopic stabilization. Within the hamster wheel, astronauts could eat normal Earth food, and do other things for which gravity would assist.
After being exposed to Turkish coffee, my reaction has been "if the spoon falls over, your coffee's not strong enough."
But even when diluted by emigration to America, some parts of Scandinavian coffee culture remains. My experience with various church groups has been that the Lutherans (and spinoffs of Swedish Lutheranism) make better coffee than the Methodists I grew up with, and Southern Baptists make worse coffee (they're really iced tea people.)
Bill Stewart
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Denis Leary - Coffee flavoured coffee.
It's a pressure vessel full of sweating and breathing people with the outside skin temperature probably in single digits of Kelvin most of the time. Condensation is already a given. Dealing with escaped liquids (like balls of water+ethylene glycol coolant the size of someone's torso as was seen on Mir) was part of the design criteria before construction of the first module commenced.
Don't take the other comment as criticism - I'm just commenting on how there are already liquid problems being dealt with, and I do see you point about not adding another liquid problem is a good idea.
Normally when you pull a shot of coffee it comes out as a very liquidy foam and then it separates out to give you the crema (head) on top - a dark brown foam about 5mm thick.
In microgravity, this wouldn't separate out so the espresso would be a homogeneous dark brown foam throughout rather than the espresso we see down here on earth. I wonder what it'd be like.
Fair enough, trying lapsang souchong was my worst tea experience of my whole life. Was like kissing a girl that smokes (also something I won't do ever again).
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
It's now in a bag add a needle for delivery and this coders dream is a reality
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
I love space, i love tech, i love coffee. But lets not hide the fact this is just coffee in a bag.
If this "space coffee" will assist in making the world a better place, i'am all for it. But honestly, i can think of a million other things that can use the 20kg space for scientific purposes.
Mochas make a bitchin' backup plan for when you're out of fresh milk. Just buy some sweetened condensed milk on sale, it will keep unopened nigh-eternally without separating like irradiated milk will. The down side is that it's sweetened, so you can only use it for sweet things... like mochas :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's a pressure vessel full of sweating and breathing people with the outside skin temperature probably in single digits of Kelvin most of the time.
You mean, on average? http://science.nasa.gov/scienc...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No I meant exactly what I wrote. To clarify, the cold extremes matter more that the average when connected surfaces can have liquids condense out on them. That's where the vapour is going to come out of the air.
Has anybody smoked in space? You know it's going to come up at some point.
I remembered hearing something about smoking on Mir. This article was the fisrt I stumbled on when I just googled it.
Might be better to go with........dabs......in......spaaaaaaaace
Seriously though, would be easier on the air filters. Also.... doob and coffee....doob AND coffee. Its like yin and yang man.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I'm old, jaded and can remember the times when life was good and code was C.
You're not old.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
There is nothing inherently wrong with pods, it all comes down to the quality and freshness of coffee in the pods.
Eat the rich.
I don't know about in space, but here on Earth, I work at a NASA center and we have one of the best "underground" espresso clubs I have ever seen. Very sophisticated engineering techniques have been applied -- our machine gets serviced in the NASA machine shop sometimes.
You should see that place near launch deadlines. Poor grinder never gets a break!
Thanks, you're sweet.
But I am. Let's face it, when your answer to an all-night coding marathon to create some cool toy is that you'd rather take a nap, you're old.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The coffee isn't subject to open container laws.
Well, it's like the old joke with the bulls ... let's walk down and fsck them all.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Latte" means milk. They already have that on the ISS. Glad to see you're not interested in a place you'll never go.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
And the Norwegian Lutherans make stronger coffee than do the German Lutherans. I'm used to Norwegian Lutheran coffee but I've been attending a German Lutheran church. The coffee is REALLY thin compared to what I'm used to. Interesting how traditions hold up over a hundred years or so.
I never got the whole syrup thing. Coffee needs no flavoring. It has a flavor already. Its flavor is called COFFEE.
It is also called several other things, most of which are profanities too harsh for the majority of the inter-tubes.
Pods are great on earth, and would be a godsend in space.