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I'm Don Pettit.

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I'm on the International Space Station
We're going to look at how crew

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in orbit can drink beverages out of an open
container, not unlike what we do on Earth.

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This is a zero-g cup and
I'm putting some tea in it.

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We drink all our fluids from a bag, suck
them up out of bags through a straw.

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But this container uses capillary force
and container shape to make the fluid rise

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up the side and park itself
right next to the lip.

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Where now can casually sip your
tea or coffee, or whatever,

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and drink it like you would a normal cup.

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Now this shows, this shows a
very special aspect of this cup.

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It's got a cross section
with an acute angle to it.

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And the fluid wicks it up the acute angle.

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And if that angle is less than 2 times
the quantity 90 minus the contact angle,

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then it will flow into that channel
and park itself next to the top..

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So here I have my cup.

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And it's just floating there with the water
in it, and it's behaving like it should

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with the meniscus crawling up near
the lip, and now I'm able to drink it.

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And the more water I drink, the
more water that gets conducted

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up this open channel and
parks itself near the lip.

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And this is the same kind of
geometry and technology that we use

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for controlling fuel inside a rocket fuel tank.

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We have a series of vanes and it keeps the
rocket propellant near the suction port so that

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when you're in a weightless environment,
you can start your rocket engine

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without ingesting a big gas bubble.

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So you get a gas bubble in a rocket
engine, they don't like that.

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So once you make these cups, then
you can actually enjoy a beverage

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in a weightless environment much like we
have beverages and enjoy them on Earth.

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And sucking all your fluids out a
bag gets a little old after a while

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and just doesn't fit the human
character in terms of sharing a meal.

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So here we are in the Node 1 with all our
colleagues, cosmonauts, ESA astronauts.

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And I made six of these cups, and we're
sitting here having a tea break during dinner,

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and we're discussing all kinds of
things, and behaving just like people do

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when they get together with their
friends or their colleagues,

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and drink beverages and eat a meal.

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And you can see we can control
these cups and sip our beverages

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without sloshing and spilling them around.

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There's mine, and see if I can't take
a sip, but it doesn't work if you try

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to take a sip through the camera.

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Now with six of these cups and our crew,
we can for the first time have a crew toast

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where this was filled I believe on Russian
Christmas or the day after Russian Christmas

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and we were taking a moment to celebrate.

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So here we go celebrating Russian
Christmas on orbit with a toast of tea.

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And all of this of course is brought about by
understanding capillary forces in the absence