Zero Gravity glass makes martinis for space

A Kickstarter campaign hope to give astronauts a chance to enjoy a martini while in space, without blobs of the beverage floating into the air. (Cosmic Lifestyle Corporation)

Everyone knows that martinis on Earth are to be shaken, not stirred. But shaking up your favorite cocktail in space comes with its own set of challenges.

First there's the issue of lack of gravity, making it impossible for the liquid to elegantly sit in a glass. (Sucking a martini out of a bag like a kid during school lunch is so uncool). Even worse, the surface tension of zero gravity turns the liquid into one mass rather than dispersing through the air.  If you break that mass apart, it creates tiny balls that float around, stick to your clothes and generally make a mess.

But martinis in space may soon have the potential of appearing like its Earth-bound counterparts with Cosmic Lifestyle Corporation’s Zero-G martini glass.

With grooves that make it easier for liquid to flow in one direction, the glass is the first of several projects planned by the group aimed at improving the comfort of astronauts and future space travellers and to “inspire people to dream big about living in off-world.”

The design of the glass is such that it allows a space traveller to “enjoy the aroma of the drink, yet keep the fluids under control,” with your mouth completing the connection “like a straw,” it said.

The glasses are printed using 3D machines, so you don’t have to waste precious space transporting it to the International Space Station.  Currently it takes 15 hours to print one glass.

CLC has created a crowdfunding Kickstarter site to raise money for the project.

“This campaign will help us test the glass in real weightless environments, which is very difficult to simulate on Earth,” CLC said.

The team, which is being supported by the Space Frontier Foundation and the Space Tourism Society, needs to raise $30,000, with the ultimate goal to print a glass on board the International Space Station by October 2015.

The campaign has so far raised over $1,800 of its goal.