Like many folks, astronauts enjoy a cup of joe from time to time, but the lack of gravity means that preparing and drinking it is a little different from how you do it back on terra firma.
With that in mind, NASA has just released a short video (above) revealing how astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) get their daily coffee fix.
To get the water for their brew, the astronauts use a specially designed water dispensing unit that takes recycled liquids and moisture drawn from the air. Once the water has been heated, the astronaut grabs a plastic pouch filled with freeze-dried coffee grounds, connects it to the unit, and fills it with the hot water. After that, they can go off to enjoy their coffee, sipping it through a straw. Or from a cup … let us explain.
Zero Gravity coffee cup
Back in 2008, one astronaut, Don Pettit (who happens to be aboard the station right now, too), decided that he wanted to enjoy his coffee in the more traditional way, by drinking it from a mug. So he invented what eventually became known as the Zero Gravity coffee cup, and you can see it in the video. To make a prototype, Pettit tore a piece of plastic from his Flight Data File mission book to create a teardrop-shaped drinking vessel. The design relies on surface tension and the laws of physics to keep the liquid from floating away in the microgravity conditions.
Further development and refinement of the design led to the Zero Gravity coffee cup becoming the first patented product invented in space.
Now that you know how astronauts drink coffee in space, you may be wondering how they go to the bathroom — apparently this is the question that astronauts get asked most. Well, this video explains all about astronauts’ bathroom routine.
For more insight into how astronauts live and work aboard the space station, take a look at this collection of videos made over the years by visitors to the orbital outpost.