Don't Spill the Beans: Zero-G Cup Lets Astronauts 'Smell the Coffee'

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are testing beverage cups that let them literally wake up and smell the coffee.

Drinking in space is a strange experience — tilting a cup to your lips will likely leave the liquid unmoved, and any disturbance can send globules of (possibly hot) liquid out into the air. Suffice it to say, drinking is generally done with a straw from a sealed container to avoid dangerous situations.

But astronauts have been testing out some strangely shaped cups that keep liquid under control well enough to contain tasty juice or scalding coffee in an open-topped container, and hold it steady even while astronauts do flips or toss the cups back and forth. [Watch: Java in Zero-G — How Space Coffee Cup Works]

"Astronauts' responses when testing out the cups so far range from 'Hey, you can smell the coffee,' to 'This is eerily like drinking on Earth,'" representatives from the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics said in a statement. "Or, the cup simply elicits happy eruptions of laughter because the astronauts readily confess they hadn't expected it to work." The researchers presented the astronaut feedback today (Nov. 23) during the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics in Boston.

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui have been kicking back hot and cold beverages in microgravity with the six prototype cups aboard the space station, made from a 3D-printed transparent polymer, as part of a research project to study how fluid dynamics work in space. Five of these cups hold 150 milliliters (5 fluid ounces) each, and one smaller one holds 60 milliliters (2 fluid ounces) — perfect for space-made espresso. The cups use a long crease to keep the liquid in line and to pull the liquid to the opening via surface tension as the astronaut sips. "Wetting conditions and the cup's special geometry create a capillary pressure gradient that drives the liquid forward toward the face of the drinker," said Mark Weislogel, a team member on the NASA project; a senior scientist at IRPI LLC, a fluid-thermal engineering firm based in Oregon; and a mechanical engineer at Portland State University.

"An astronaut can drain the cup in sips or one long gulp in much the same manner as on Earth … without tipping their head, without gravity," he added. "It's a stable situation — even though drinking scalding liquids from open containers while aboard the International Space Station is generally considered a safety concern," he said in the statement.

 

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