Marilyn sez, “NASA astronaut Don Pettit was tired of drinking from straws all the time in space, ‘You feel like an insect sucking juices out of another insect,’ so on a mission last November he fashioned a drinking cup that would work in zero gravity via capillary action. He used a sheet of plastic and some tape. You can see a photo of it on this National Geographic blog along with the mathematical calculations that explain how it works.”
Don Pettit did a great interview on NPR’s Science Friday about this and his other space-inventions.
No Gravity, No Straw: Birth of a Space Cup
(Thanks, Marilyn!)