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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.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Drake_Edgewater on Thursday April 16 2015, @03:45PM
Do they sell cartridge-based coffee machines as well? Because this looks to me like a fine piece of advertisement.
I don't understand why people buys these machines. They only work with cartriges of brand X. They produce a lot of plastic waste. If brand X stops producing cartridges, then the machine becomes obsolete. I can get coffee of the same or better quality using paper filters. Yet a lot of people are buying them, and they are advertised everywhere.
I recently bought a manual coffee grinder, and I totally recommend it. There is nothing like the smell of roasted coffee grains.
Anyway, I'm happy that our astronauts are being supplied with caffeine.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Friday April 17 2015, @02:12AM
At work we provide our own coffee. For a long while we had a simple 10-cup coffee maker. The problem was if only one person wanted coffee, he would have to make a pot which all wouldn't have been consumed. The extra coffee would be wasted. Then it was a pain to clean the coffee maker at work. We all chipped in and bought a Keurig. The price per serving is higher than before, but now we can easily make fresh coffee only for those who want it at any given time. No more half pot sitting for hours on the burner.
The issue of vendor lock-in is small with the machine we bought, the Keurig 1.0, because the patent ran out on the coffee cartridge and everyone makes coffee in that format now (and is why there is the new Keurig 2.0 with an attempt at DRM [engadget.com]).