Portland State Magazine Fall 2015

12 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE FALL 2015 SIPPING COFFEE IN AT FIRST GLANCE , it looks like a big, plastic nose—part of a translucent Groucho Marx disguise. Its bulging, curved surface belies the breakthrough research it represents: It’s the coffee cup that may make travel to Mars viable one day. Meanwhile it’s keeping the astronauts aboard the International Space Station caffeinated. “This is fundamental science,” the cup’s co-inventor, Mark Weislogel, practically shouts, sounding like a cross between a lab-coated movie actor and a kid with a new toy. His excite- ment is palpable. “It’s absolute confirmation. It shows what is possible. We’re getting calls from all over the world.” Weislogel, a Portland State engineering professor who specializes in fluid science, has become one of NASA’s go-to researchers on matters relating to the complex but critical movement of liquid in the unforgiving condi- tions of space. Until NASA can solve thorny problems relating to everything from carbon dioxide recycling to urine removal—basic plumbing in other words—manned long-distance space flight likely will remain a pipe dream. Consider what they’re up against. In zero gravity, where there is no up or down, how do you get water to flow where it should? And then there are the bubbles. Anytime you deal with liquids, you have to deal with bubbles. “A BUBBLE ON EARTH is not a problem,” Weislogel explains. “But a bubble in space is like a beach ball—it bounces all over the place.” If one gets loose, it can shut down a primary life support system in the spacecraft. “A bubble,” he says, “can delete the mission.” NASA’s solution to date has been to fully contain every bit of liquid in sealed containers. When astronauts want a drink, they squeeze it out or suck it out through a straw of sorts. But airtight containers are prone to failure, and experiencing your morning cup of joe through a bag is, let’s face it, kind of a downer. Enter Weislogel and his cup. Through a combination of extensive mathematics, prodigious use of PSU’s famous 90-foot drop tower (which mimics the effects of weight- lessness) and ongoing research aboard the International Space Station, Weislogel and his students zeroed in on fluid movement in space. What they discovered is that with the right material, shape and design, liquids can be encouraged to follow a specific path in an open container without the benefit of gravity. The technical term is large length scale capillary fluidics. Surface tension—a result of the attraction of liquid mole- cules—plays a big role, too. Once they thought they had the problem licked mathematically and theoretically, they moved on to applying it to something that could be used. When it comes to science, Weislogel has something of a playful streak. He likes to humanize his results. A cup that would allow an astronaut to drink coffee like a terrestrial, he reasoned, would be a fun application of a lot of research. He and his team designed a pro- totype that looked a bit like a see-through whiskey flask. It was delivered to the Interna- tional Space Station where Oregon astronaut Don Petit filmed himself and colleagues sipping from the open container – something never before done in space. Weislogel tweaked the design to its current form and sent more cups to the space station. On May 4, 2015, a different kind of breakthrough occurred. Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti brewed espresso in a special machine and took a photo of herself drinking it from one of Weislogel’s cups. The picture went viral on Twitter. Coffee in space became an international sensation. But this story is about more than getting a caffeine fix 251 miles above Earth. “Mark is opening a Golden Age of working with fluids in microgravity,” says John Graf, who develops life support systems at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “He’s WR I T T E N B Y HARRY E S T EVE ZERO GRAVITY Research that will get us to Mars ABOVE: DESIGN OF THE 3-D PRINTED SPACE CUP REQUIRED A DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF HOW FLUIDS BEHAVE IN ZERO GRAVITY.