This Is How Astronauts Could Drink Their Coffee In Space

People have always been fascinated with space, and what it has to offer – so much so that pop culture has been bombarded with all kinds of stuff about it. Lately there has been a huge increase in science fiction movies, especially with a storyline that is played out in space, and we are all mesmerized by the insane innovation that lies before us. Such mundane things like drinking a cup of coffee in space can become an endeavor that requires both innovation and skill.

I guess we will have had to experience space in order to fully understand the complexities it challenges us with. I keep saying it, but problems are made to be solved. Designer Travis Baldwin is an innovator at heart and decided to take on the endeavor of how to enjoy a simple cup of coffee in space. Pour a regular cup of coffee in space and you will quickly find yourself in a panic that you could never experience here on earth. It takes finesse, and a whole lot of innovation to make sure the coffee doesn’t end up all over the gazillion buttons on your spacecraft.

The design behind this cup is entirely driven by the complexities of zero gravity. It most likely looks quite weird to us ordinary earthlings. But once you look more closely, you start to understand why this cup, called on-orbit coffee cup, is designed the way it is and how it can come to give astronauts a simpler, more earth-like approach to drinking their coffee in space.

As you can see, the coffee is only held safe within the cup by the bevels and the surface tension at the bottom of the cup. Give it a little bit of forward momentum, and the coffee will come pouring down for the astronaut to enjoy. No one said drinking in space was easy, and it’s definitely not posh. This cup, meant to increase the enjoyment of a real cup of coffee in space, is easily mass manufactured, which of course means we will all soon be traveling to other planets and galaxies, no?