Female Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took along a specially
adapted espresso machine on her recent trip to the International Space Station.
by John
Tyburski
Copyright © Daily
Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
If the
Russians can take caviar to space, then why would not the Italians take
espresso? Putting espresso in space on the International Space Station (ISS) is
exactly what female Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti set out to do,
with the aid of coffee and space cuisine experts, of course.
In fact,
Cristoforetti is not only the first to enjoy espresso in space, she is the
first Italian female in space. Cristoforetti and companion cosmonaut Anton
Shkaplerov docked with the ISS earlier today after an uneventful six-hour
flight aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-15M craft that launched from Baikonur
Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Shkaplerov honored Russian tradition by bringing along
15 boxes of caviar.
According
to NASA, “A new vehicle has arrived. The Soyuz is confirmed as attached
properly, high above the Pacific Ocean.”
Cristoforetti
and Shkaplerov join American astronaut Terry Virts aboard the ISS, and the
three are scheduled to remain there until May 2015. In addition to the 15
30-gram boxes of caviar, the astronauts have apples, oranges, tomatoes, and 140
servings of dried milk and unsweetened black tea, according to the Russian news
agency TASS, quoting a space station official.
The
specially modified espresso machine that Cristoforetti brought along with her
was provided by the well-known Italian coffee maker Lavazza, in collaboration with
Argotec, a space food engineering firm.
The
37-year-old Cristoforetti, who is a captain in the Italian air force, “will be
not only the first female astronaut from Italy to go into space, but also the
very first astronaut in the history of the conquest of space to savour an
authentic Italian espresso in orbit,” the two companies said.
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