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Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Nov 24, 2008 01:47 PM
from the harder-than-you-might-think dept.
from the harder-than-you-might-think dept.
muggs was one of several readers to note a fluffy piece making the rounds about an astronaut inventing a
zero-g coffee cup. Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine, I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.
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Ponca City, We love you writes "Astronauts flying aboard space shuttle Endeavour are delivering a device to the International Space Station that may leave you wondering if NASA is taking recycling too far. Among the ship's cargo is a water regeneration system that distills, filters, ionizes, and oxidizes wastewater — including urine — into fresh water for drinking or, as one astronaut puts it, 'will make yesterday's coffee into today's coffee.' The US space agency spent $250M for the water recycling equipment but with the space shuttles due to retire in two years, NASA needed to make sure the station crew would have a good supply of fresh water. The Environmental Control and Life Support Systems uses a purification process called vapor compression distillation: urine is boiled until the water in it turns to steam. In space, there's an additional challenge: steam doesn't rise, so the entire distillation system is spun to create artificial gravity to separate the steam from the brine. The water has been thoroughly tested on Earth, including blind taste tests that pitted recycled urine with similarly treated tap water. 'Some people may think it's downright disgusting, but if it's done correctly, you process water that's purer than what you drink here on Earth,' said Endeavour astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper."
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Should be okay... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Should be okay... (Score:5, Funny)
2astronauts1cup?
In zero-G no less. Ugh.
Parent
'This coffee tastes like piss..' (Score:5, Funny)
Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..' (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the big deal about drinking recycled urine? I guess I just don't get it; pure water is pure water, regardless of what was in it in the past (unless, I sopose, you believe in homeopathic medicine). Statistically, I bet most of the water you drink has gone through a fellow human being at some point or another, what's the big deal?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..' (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read some interesting psychology research done on humans and how they value, and transfer, the concept of filth. It's not logical, and it's pervasive.
The basic experiment works like this: you offer the subject two pieces of chocolate. One looks like a bar of chocolate. The other looks like a turd. You ask the subject which one is preferable, and what value it has over the other ("Would you eat the turd over the bar for $1?") Another version, that measures how the brain transfers filth, offers two cups of tea, one stirred with a spoon, the other with a brand-new just-removed-from-package flyswatter. People place a measurable, significant value on the object that isn't associated with filth, even if there isn't actually any filth there. It's just the perception. People mentally mark things as dirty/unhealthy/nasty, and then mark anything that's been touched by those things as similarly filthy. You can measure how much people think types of contact dilute filth ("five-second rule!") and how they perceive filth degrading over time.
And the somewhat ironic thing is that fresh urine is one of the more sterile materials out there. There are orders of magnitude less nasty infectous beasts in a nice frosty cuppa pee than in someone's saliva.
But that doesn't make people like it any better.
It horrifies many people when they go on bike rides along the river and see the waste treatment plants dumping water out into the river upstream of other cities. They realize those other cities are drinking their pee, and they in turn are drinking someone else's pee. I guess that before that point, they think that waste just *vanishes* somehow. Personally, I've often looked at watershed drainage maps and calculated how many people water has been through when it gets to, eg Des Moines compared to Black Hawk, Colorado. (I estimate 4 animals, maybe 1 person, for Black Hawk, and more like 30-70 animals/people for Des Moines.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's like how my girlfriend chastises for not washing my hands after I pee, but has no problems giving me a blowjob without first dunking my schlong in bleach.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is laughably false. Where do people get such ideas?
Tap water usually contains trace amounts of minerals such as calcium and magnesium, which are all necessary for the human metabolism. But those minerals are also available in food; unless you already have a deficiency (or are borderline) the distilled water won't m
Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..' (Score:4, Funny)
I expect it to be cleaner and safer to drink than water piped from an open reservoir through pipes buried in the ground that may or may not be leaking.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And, after it cools down, the taste isn't bad either, I can tell you.
Re:'This coffee tastes like piss..' (Score:5, Interesting)
You can drink your own pee, quite safely. It is sterile, after all.
I've seen so many people say this but most do not understand what it really means.
Urine is sterile before it leaves the bladder; and then that's only usually - not always. That's it. If you have bacterial contamination in your urethra, your urine is now contaminated too. If you have a bladder infection, your bladder is also infected - even in the bladder. Mild infections which naturally pass in a couple of days are not uncommon. This is especially true if you are sexually active. Especially so if you are a sexually active female.
Also, if you are dehydrated, urine is not safe to drink. This is because the contaminates extracted from your body are no longer dilute enough and you are now poisoning your self with a concentrated form of whatever your body previously removed from your body - which may now overload your kidneys. Given some 40%+ of the US general population is at least mildly dehydrated, consuming one's own urine is risky. Furthermore, urine which is not clear, should *never* be consumed.
One should never drink urine unless your life hangs in the balance, as otherwise compromising your health and kidneys may be the price you pay. If no water is available, drinking urine is acceptable but only so long as it remains clear.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This is especially true if you are sexually active. Especially so if you are a sexually active female.
On Slashdot....? C'mon, choose your audiences more carefully :P
Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, but.. (Score:2)
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 amuck.
"The way this works is, the cross section of this cup looks like an airplane wing," he said. "The narrow angle here will wick the coffee up."
The result: space coffee in a zero-G cup.
The theory behind the novel coffee cup is the same one used by rockets to draw fuel into their engines while flying through weightless conditions in space, Pettit said.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm having a bit of trouble picturing this... is it like drinking out of an erlenmeyer flask?
Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Normally they drink from a bag with a straw, bu (Score:5, Informative)
I'm having a bit of trouble picturing this...
In case you can't view the video or the pictures:
1) Take a piece of paper.
2) Fold it in half but don't squash and crease it. The joined edges are flat together and the rest of the paper tries to form a gentle curve. The midline where the crease WOULD have been is trying to be a cylinder, but the curvature has to reduce, then reverse, to end up with the edges being flat together. The result is a pipe with a cross-section shaped like a tear drop.
3) Now take your teardrop-pipe and fold one end closed. Squeeze the rest so the remaining opening in the other end stays open and teardrop shaped. This is your cup.
4) When you fill it with liquid in zero-G the liquid attaches to the cup by surface tension. It is attracted most to the folded edge, because there's so much more surface in close proximity. Next most attractive area is the closed bottom, so the bulk of the liquid stays down there.
5) Because the join of the edges is so attractive, the blob of liquid reaches an "arm" up the inside of the join, all the way up to the cup's opening. That's where you suck on it. It's like a virtual straw, which doesn't need to completely enclose the liquid.
Make sense now?
Parent
The Russians figured it out first. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The Russians figured it out first. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
What are the odds (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Apologies to muggs for inadvertantly filling his inbox
What do you think you drink on Earth? (Score:2, Informative)
Unless you import virgin hydrogen and oxygen from a supernova, the water you had this morning has been through several organisms...
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
And, ummm, who doesn't? Most of us just have a bigger recycling plant than they do.
rj
Desperate Measures... (Score:2)
an astronaut inventing a zero-g coffee cup.
Someone needs to switch to decaf, I'm thinking...
Re: (Score:2)
Especially since the machine is busted... (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/23/america/shuttle.php [iht.com]
Hope they've got a good, strong blend!
Ignorant summary writer. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only real difference on the space station is that they do a much better job of purifying and testing the water than nature does.
Re:Ignorant summary writer. (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Ignorant summary writer. (Score:4, Interesting)
Given how wildly inaccurate I'm sure my assumptions are, I guess this doesn't really prove anything (other than that I'm a nerd). I was hoping there'd be like four order's of magnitude difference one way or the other.
Parent
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, since the space station inhabitants drink recycled urine, I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.
Wow, I guess Starbucks really is everywhere.
Coiled tube (Score:2)
Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space (Score:4, Funny)
If I were to drink from a cup in space, I'd need a really long straw.
Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space (Score:4, Insightful)
That's true as long as the liquid is being held by gravity. In orbit that is not the case, and the only limiting criterion would be friction of the liquid agains the side of the straw (which is essentially zero).
Parent
Re:Drinking Coffee From a Cup In Space (Score:5, Funny)
As long as the straw is less than 10 meters long.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
pisswater coffee (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still not totally convinced that I would want to try that cup.
Char it and you'd never be able to tell it from Starbucks. Chill and carbonate it and it'll pass for Budweiser.
Re:pisswater coffee (Score:5, Funny)
If Budweiser tasted like carbonated urine, it would be a step up.
Parent
Re:pisswater coffee (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Recycled water? (Score:5, Insightful)
ALL water is recycled. Thirty thousand years ago a mammoth was pissing out the water that's sitting in your coffee urn this morning. People need to get over this, just like they need to get over irradiated food. It's at least as safe to drink as bottled water; And likely moreso since some bottled water undergoes no processing prior to being packaged. Did you know that the LA municipal water supply recycles its sewage into tap water? It's the nation's largest sewage processing station, and as a byproduct it produces several million tonnes of valuable fertilizer that's highly valued for use on the wineries in California. This isn't unique to California -- many coastal cities use similar measures because the rivers are too polluted and they're too close to sea level to find water reserves underground.
Re:Recycled water? (Score:5, Funny)
Blasphemy! God constantly provides us with new water through his tears, AKA the rain, which adds mass to the planet daily. I suppose next you're going to try to tell us that clouds form through evaporation of the seas, or some such nonsense, despite the fact that clouds are EVERYWHERE, and the oceans would be dry by now if they were constantly evaporating.
Parent
Re:Recycled water? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, if he's crying it's probably because of something you did.
Parent
Re:Recycled water? (Score:5, Funny)
If so, they're tears of JOY!!!11
Parent
You're already drinking urine every day anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
Rob, dude, you really should think about some of these stories a little more before posting them. We're all drinking urine (and other much more horrible things) each and every day. It's what those costly water treatment plants on Earth are responsible for filtering, and it's what those expensive systems for the ISS are designed for. What's the difference? Either way the if the coffee tastes good, and it's clean water that's used, I'm happy drinking it :)
Young Doctors In Space (Score:2)
But it doesn't taste like urine. (Score:2)
But I wonder who did the A/B comparison.
Maybe they just taste-tested the coffee against a cup from Starbucks.
The best part of walking up... (Score:5, Funny)
A real mug design (Score:2)
Re:rocket turbopump to administer astronaut caffie (Score:3, Interesting)
I am pretty sure what they are referring to are satellites already at their desired orbit.
Once satellites reach their orbit, they don't just sit there. After some time the orbit can start to shift around, so satellites use very small station keeping thrusters.
Most of the time these thrusters are bi-props (MMH and NTO) that use the same tanks that were employed to feed the much larger main engine used to circularize the orbit.
But once the satellite is at orbit, you have a relatively small amount of f