The Zero-Gravity Cup.... Endeavour Astronaut INVENTS Novel Way To 'Drink Coffee' In Space !!!

by **J The Kidd** Thu Nov 27, 2008 1:05 am

A self-confessed coffee lover, astronaut Don Pettit became so fed
up with drinking his daily brew through a straw, that he invented a
zero gravity cup on his day off at the International Space Station.

Normally when astronauts drink coffee in space, they are likely to
end up scalding their lap, unless they drink it out of a bag and
through a plastic straw.

Pettit said it was not how he liked to his enjoy beloved java.

'We can suck our coffee from a bag, but to drink it from a cup is hard
to do because you can't get the cup up to get the liquid out, and it's
also easy to slosh,' he told Mission Control while sending a video of
his new invention to Earth.

He 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 and running amok.

'The way this works is, the cross section of this cup looks like an airplane wing,' Pettit said.

'The narrow angle here will wick the coffee up.

'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 clear down to the last drop in the cup.'

Pettit said the theory behind the novel coffee cup was the same one
used by rockets to draw fuel into their engines while flying through
weightless conditions in space.

The Zero-Gravity Cup.... Endeavour Astronaut INVENTS Novel Way To 'Drink Coffee' In Space !!! FUCKUPAYMEUNDERRATEDOVERWORKEDUNDERPAID

'This may very well be what future space colonists end up using when they want to have a celebration and do a toast.'

Pettit, who arrived at the space station last week on the shuttle Endeavour, is no stranger to space invention.

During his first spaceflight as the space station's Expedition 6
science officer in 2002, he was renown for tinkering with broken
hardware.

More recently Pettit has been working on the urine processor at the
International Space Station, which will allow NASA to double the size
of space crew next year.

Endeavour and its seven-person crew are scheduled to return to Earth on Sunday.

NASA extended the flight by a day to give the astronauts more time to work on the urine processor.

Watch Don Pettit demonstrating the use of his space cup: