Originally published in June 1959
“The problems of eating and drinking under weightless conditions in space, long a topic of speculation among science-fiction writers, are now under investigation in a flying laboratory. Preliminary results indicate that space travelers will drink from plastic squeeze bottles and that space cooks will specialize in semiliquid preparations resembling baby food. According to a report in the Journal of Aviation Medicine, almost all the volunteers found that drinking from an open container was a frustrating and exceedingly messy process. Under weightless conditions even a slowly lifted glass of water was apt to project an amoeba-like mass of fluid onto the face. Drinking from a straw was hardly more satisfactory. Bubbles of air remained suspended in the weightless water, and the subjects ingested more air than water.”
—Scientific American, June 1959
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