Astronaut Invents Zero-G Coffee Cup

Ever try to drink coffee through a straw. For a coffee lover, it ruins the experience. A coffee-loving astronaut has devised a zero-G cup, that he can use to drink his java sans straw.

Normally astronauts drink fluids from plastic pouches with straws. But Don Pettit, currently aboard the International Space Station, wasn't satisfied with that. Using the same principle that helps spacecraft engines draw fuel in zero-G conditions, Pettit used a piece of plastic ripped from his Flight Data File mission book and folded it into a teardrop-shape that's closed at one end.

Surface tension inside the cup keeps the coffee from floating out.

As he explained in a demonstration sent by video to Mission Control, Pettit said:

"With the special shape of this "cup," the surface tension forces will wick the coffee up along the edge there --- and as you can see as I'm putting some coffee there in the bag. And the way works is the cross-section of this cups looks like an airplane wing. And the sharp angle, the narrow angle there will wick the coffee up, and this is what we use when design fuel tanks for rockets to re-ignite in a weightless environment --- the vanes in the tanks will wick the fluid into the suction port. And if that angle is less that 2 x 90 - thc contact wetting angle, the fluid will rise like that.

So knowing this for a fuel tank, you can make it into a cup and drink your fluid from. So you can just sip there right on the edge of the cup and as you sip more fluid keeps coming up and up and up. And you can enjoy a cup of coffee in a weightless environment without having to sip it from a bag. You can just keep sipping and sipping and sipping, clear down to the last drop in the cup."

Watch the video: