[zwieback]

Wow, I thought this was a bad joke but I checked other sources and it's true. I guess it's another breakthrough the billions of dollars and Euros invested in manned space flight have given us.

How many cups of Espresso did the Mars Rover need?

[orillian]

I get the impression these companies did it for the advertising. Not on demand from the Italian Space Agency.

It looks like they developed the idea and then pitched the final product to the Agency hoping to get it aboard the IIS.

So While I'm sure it cost them money, it's not as likely to have been taxpayer money, making it a..."waste your money if you want too", type deal.