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ROME — Samantha Cristoforetti had an espresso on Sunday that was out of this world, and she did it in the name of science.
罗马——周日，萨曼莎·克里斯托弗雷蒂(Samantha Cristoforetti)享用了一杯世间难寻的意式浓缩咖啡，而且是以科学的名义。
Ms. Cristoforetti is an astronaut, the seventh Italian and the first Italian woman to venture into orbit. She has been at the International Space Station since November, and over the weekend got to do something quintessentially Italian: She became the first person to drink an authentic serving of what she called “the finest organic suspension ever devised” in space.
克里斯托弗雷蒂是一名宇航员，她是进入过太空的第七名意大利航天员，也是首位意大利女性。从去年11月以来，她一直待在国际空间站(International Space Station)里。上周末，她做成了一件非常具有意大利特色的事情：她成了第一个在太空品尝到纯正意式浓缩咖啡(espresso)的人。她把这杯咖啡称作太空中“有史以来最细腻的有机悬浮液”。
“Fresh espresso in the new Zero-G cup! To boldly brew ... ” she posted on social media, where she has been chronicling her stay on the station with photos and explanatory videos.
“新的零重力杯里的新鲜意式浓缩！大胆地煮……”她在社交媒体上说。她一直在上面用照片和视频记录自己在空间站的生活。
However much she may have enjoyed her first espresso in more than five months, making the drink in orbit was no lark, but “a very serious study in fluid physics,” Roberto Battiston, president of ASI, the Italian space agency, wrote in an emailed statement. “Until Sunday, we didn’t know exactly how hot fluids under high pressure reacted” in the near-weightless environment of the space station, he said. “Now we do.”
无论她多么享受这五个多月以来的第一杯意式浓缩，在太空中制作这杯饮料可不是为了好玩，而是“一项非常严肃的流体物理学研究，”意大利航天局(ASI)局长罗伯托·巴蒂斯顿(Roberto Battiston)在一份邮件声明中说。“在上周日之前，我们都不能确切地知道，热流体在高压下会出现何种反应，”他说。“现在我们得到了答案。”
A special espresso maker, named ISSpresso, was designed for the task by Argotec, an engineering and software firm based in Turin, and the Italian coffee producer Lavazza, with help from the space agency. It was included among the experiments and technical demonstrations that Ms. Cristoforetti, a captain in the Italian Air Force, was scheduled to carry out on her mission to the station, which ends in mid-May.
这台特制的意式浓缩咖啡机叫做ISSpresso，在ASI的帮助下，由位于都灵的设计和软件公司亚果科技(Argotec)和意大利咖啡生产商Lavazza制作。它是克里斯托弗雷蒂计划在空间站完成的实验和技术演示中的一项。克里斯托弗雷蒂是意大利空军的一名飞行员，她的这次任务将于5月中旬结束。
“Coffee represents one of the distinctive elements of Italian culture,” said a spokeswoman for the agency, who requested anonymity under her agency’s rules for employees.
“咖啡是意大利文化中的独特元素之一，”航天局的一名发言人说。由于该局对雇员的相关规定，她要求匿名。
Making a proper espresso — a singular alchemy of high temperature, water pressure and perfectly tamped coffee — is difficult enough to master on earth. Microgravity conditions made the task still more complicated, and Argotec took two years to work out how to do it.
制作一杯像样的意式浓缩咖啡——这个流程需要高温、水压，还要把咖啡粉完美地压实——在地球上就已经很难了。微重力条件让这个任务更加复杂，亚果科技花了两年时间才解决这个问题。
“We developed our hardware on the basis of the parameters for making good coffee, while considering safety requirements,” said Valerio Di Tana, an engineer at the company.
“我们根据制作好咖啡的标准开发了我们的硬件设备，同时还考虑了安全方面的要求，”公司的工程师瓦莱里奥 ·迪塔纳(Valerio Di Tana)说。
The squat, 44-pound machine wound up looking something like an old-fashioned laboratory incubator, built from military-standard components. “You don’t see those on terrestrial machines,” Mr. Di Tana said.
这台低矮的机器重44磅（约合20千克），采用军工标准的零件打造而成，看上去就像是一台旧式的实验室孵化器。“你在地球上的机器里看不到这些零件，”迪塔纳说。
The dripless system is even designed to emit a small waft of coffee odor when the straw is inserted into the pouch containing the brew. Two small flaps on the side allow an astronaut to hold it without burning a hand.
通过不滴水系统的特殊设计，当把吸管插入盛有咖啡的小袋时，还可以释放出少量的咖啡香气。侧面设计了两个小活板，宇航员拿着的时候不会烫手。
The ISSpresso machine makes other hot drinks as well, including tea and consommé. “This is important from the nutritional aspect, but also gives the astronauts a psychological boost,” David Avino, the managing director of Argotec, said in a telephone interview on Monday.
这台ISSpresso还能制作其他热饮，包括茶和清炖肉汤。“它不仅能在提供营养方面能够发挥作用，还能让宇航员在心理上更加振奋，”亚果科技的执行董事戴维·阿维诺(David Avino)周一接受电话采访时说。
The company had already begun the project when another Italian astronaut, Luca Parmitano, remarked in a June 2013 interview from the space station that the one thing he really missed in space “was a good cup of espresso.”
在这家公司启动这个项目之后不久，2013年6月，另一名意大利宇航员卢卡·帕米塔诺(Luca Parmitano)在空间站接受采访时曾说，他在太空中唯一十分想念的东西，“就是一杯香醇的意式浓缩咖啡”。
