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> Space Booster? Costa Rican Designed Coffeemaker Could Be Outta This World
Space Booster? Costa Rican Designed Coffeemaker Could Be Outta This World
September 15, 2008
Astronauts and space tourists may soon enjoy Costa Rican coffee while in orbit thanks to a recent invention that works without gravity and uses natural convection to heat water.
Josué Solano, age 23, and Daniel Rozen, 24, have developed a prototype of what they call an Infusor Espacial as part of their bachelor's degree thesis project for an electromechanical engineering degree at the Costa Rica Technology Institute. (They earned 100%!)
The two students spent six months developing a prototype from an idea first posited by Costa Rican former astronaut Franklin Chang who grew tired of mediocre instant coffee available on missions and designed a preliminary idea for a coffeemaker that could defy gravity.
The "space" coffeemaker is made of stainless steel and has three functional parts: a heating chamber, a piston-like device to push hot water into ground coffee beans, and a container for the ready-to-drink coffee.
The principle of the design concept is to stimulate natural convection, a well-known, widely-used method to transfer heat, especially heat that doesn't exist in space due to "microgravity". According to the web site, microgravity.com, microgravity (aka weightlessness or zero gravity), is the absence of gravity best illustrated by astronauts floating in their spacecraft. They float because they are in an environment of weightlessness or microgravity environment. On earth, people can experience microgravity in "free fall" experiences while on a roller coaster or by jumping off diving boards, or they can witness it when a coin tossed upward "free falls". These on-earth experiences, however, lasts mere seconds.
The device works by infusion, much like the system used to make herbal tea and medical extractions from plants, leaves, stems, or herbs, Solano said. The device could have a dual purpose, making great coffee in unusual places like camping or outer space, or used to explore extractions of various medicinal and vegetal substances which could be used to cure a wide host of diseases.
Although they are not working for Chang's company, Ad Astra Rocket, Rozen said that Ad Astra was one of several who helped either finance, build, or contribute technical support for the project development. The others included the following: The Technological Institute of Costa Rica (from three schools/departments: business, electromechanical engineering and industrial design), the National Institute for Learning (the manufacturer of the prototype) and "Café La Margarita," (which financed the project). Currently, the prototype is undergoing the legal process for product patents.
Several US inventions for gravity feed coffeemakers and others using microgravity technology have been patented but none has yet come to market.
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