- Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti shows off the NASA designed space cup
- The cup allows for open drinks containers for the first time aboard the ISS
After too much coffee you might feel like you’re floating, but for astronauts getting their coffee to stop floating can be a real headache.
In a video posted to celebrate International Coffee Day, Samantha Cristoforetti, an astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA), has revealed how she made her morning coffee without the help of gravity during her time on the International Space Station (ISS).
Using a specially designed ‘space cup’, Ms Cristoforetti was able to sip her morning brew without difficulty – even while orbiting 250 miles (420km) above the nearest coffee shop.
The footage shows the Italian astronaut carefully pouring her coffee from a sealed bag into the curiously shaped cup.
For astronauts, even having an open cup is a serious challenge, however this invention allows residents on the ISS to enjoy some of the simple pleasures of life on Earth.
The video was filmed last year year during Ms Cristoforetti’s 170-day stay in orbit, during which she became the first female commander of the ISS.
Ms Cristoforetti arrived at the ISS on 27 April 2022 and returned to Earth on 14 October.
Commenters on social media have shared their amazement at the design.
‘It’s the little things that bring home the reality of a space-faring civilization,’ one user wrote.
Another joked that they’d like their space-coffee ‘with a lot of liquified sugar please’.
In the video, Ms Cristoforetti demonstrates the difficulty of drinking in space, with coffee poured into a small bottle remaining trapped there by the influence of its own surface tension.
Astronauts looking for their caffeine boost have to make do with aluminium bags pre-filled with freeze-dried coffee, milk, and sugar into which hot water can be pumped.
NASA scientist Dr Mark Weislogel, who helped design the cup, explained in a blog: ‘In a spacecraft, if the effects of surface tension are not understood, liquids (e.g., water, fuel) can be just about anywhere in the container that holds them.
‘This is why in space you’ll only see astronauts drinking from bags with straws so that they can completely collapse the bag to assure the liquids come out.’
To get around these problems, NASA has designed a cup that uses clever geometry to exploit the physics of surface tension.
Touching your lips to the rim of the space-cup creates a ‘capillary connection’, drawing the liquid into your mouth in much the same way a paper towel soaks up water.
However, sending the cups to space wasn’t just about making astronauts’ mornings more enjoyable, but was part of some serious science.
The same physics that helps pour coffee from a cup to your mouth affect all liquids, whether on Earth or in space.
As Dr Wesilogal explains, observing how the space cup works in zero-gravity will help scientists learn about everything from ‘getting the last drop of fuel for a rocket engine or delivering the perfect dose of medication to a patient.’
Experiments performed on the space cup will also help prevent disasters on future long-distance space voyages such as a trip to Mars.
This isn’t the first time some serious science has gone into getting a better brew aboard the ISS.
In 2015, the Italian Space Agency, working with engineering firm Argotec and coffee company Lavazza, designed the Isspresso machine: the world’s first microgravity espresso maker.
The 44lbs (20kg) machine spent two years aboard the ISS and used steel hydraulic pipes to produce a cup of fresh hot espresso in around three minutes.
Even with the Isspresso’s advanced design, coffee was still pumped into a bag for drinking, so space-bound caffeine addicts would still need to use the space cup to enjoy the aroma of their brew.