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International Space Station Finally Gets Real Coffee

posted by martyb on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the look-what's-brewing-on-the-ISS dept.

Imagine starting your day without any coffee. Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, Tim Hortons and vany other chains thrive on our coffee addiction. Add to that the fact that many of us have already had a cup or two even before venturing out to get a cup from one of those chains. Well, an Anonymous Coward has written in to tell us of some hard-working folks who had to give up real coffee for months at a time!

For years, the hard-working astronauts aboard the ISS had to begin their day with freeze-dried, reconstituted coffee served in plastic pouches. Now, this gross injustice may finally be remedied. The resupply mission scheduled to be launched today (Tuesday) will carry a new model of space espresso maker. Manufactured by Lavazza and the Italian aerospace firm Argotec, the machine is specially designed for microgravity operation, and uses off-the-shelf Lavazza coffee packets.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:24PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:24PM (#171575)

    Why does anyone need coffee to start their day?

    2 reasons explain everything:
    1. Caffeine tolerance.
    2. Sleep deprivation.

    And yes, this tends to build up over time: sleep deprivation leads to using caffeine regularly leads to tolerance leads to more sleep deprivation leads to more caffeine ...

    I dated a caffeine addict once, and being around me (I've always been quite happy without it most of the time) convinced her to try quitting. After a couple of weeks of headaches and drowsiness, she was able to sleep much better and was much more alert during the day. Yes, the plural of anecdote is not evidence, but in my experience caffeine really is best used as a very temporary measure.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:45PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:45PM (#171643) Journal

    She must have been a heavy coffee drinker. Because dropping coffee usually causes no problems, not even temporary ones.

    Espresso, being nothing more than a dark roast, actually has less caffeine than typical brewed coffee. The longer you roast the beans the more of the caffeine you drive out. Even non-espresso darker roasts have less caffeine.

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