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Space

Beer In Space 106

Posted by Hemos from the lost-in-time-lost-in-space-lost-in...meaning dept.
Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote to us regarding a very important development concerning the consumption of beer in space. I'm going to sleep easier knowing this *grin*. Update: 12/22 06:07 AM by T : Thanks to alert reader toad (who was not drinking within sight) for the updated URL.
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Beer In Space More

Beer In Space

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  • In theory (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You get a really big piece of lead, jack it up 6 feet in the air, and work underneath it. The gravitational pull cancels. The problem is, there are no materials strong enough to hold it up there. A few years ago I read a discussion of controlling gravity by methods like this -- using well-understood science, but technology that is _way_ out there. I think it was in an afterword to a science fiction novel by Dr. Robert Forward, a physicist who probably knows more about gravity than anyone else on earth.

    Seriously, I'm sure they used computer simulations. The only way to really test it is to lease the space shuttle for a kegger. I would trust that their membrane & compressed air system for getting beer out the tap works -- how could it fail? Plus, you can test that just by verifying it pumps the beer out with the keg upside down (tap up). Of course that's the easy part of the problem, what do you do after it comes out? It won't stay in a mug. I rather doubt that carbonated liquid would float around in nice blobs instead of spraying everywhere, no matter what the computer simulation says. You'd have to drink straight from the tap. And then there's the issue of fizz in your stomach, without gravity to collect it at the top...

    Obviously, the Netherlands government must rent the space shuttle for the first weightless kegger. Do it for science!
    8-)
    Mark Moss
  • "Hey ma"

    Uuuuuuurrrrrp

    "Excuse me"
  • Moderators should be ashamed. This isn't funny, it's flamebait. Using "cartoon porn" to refer to anime in general is brain-damaged; saying that about a masterpiece like Princess Mononoke can only be blamed on intentional offensiveness, no one is that stupid.
  • and you could use belching to propell yourself in zero G.

    Not to mention the uses for beer-farts! (better not do this until those scrubbers get fixed!)
  • A pizza would be a fine food to eat in space too. It would fload and you could spin it just slightly, like a cdrom. All those colorful tasty toppings whirling around on a yummy disk saturated with rich, steaming pizza sauce. Break off a piece, munch it down, and grab another off the roatating work of art.
  • IIRC, "space sickness" is a very common condition amongst many astronauts. I believe they have bags to catch the results . . .
  • Is this the one?

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/space/2000/12 /i tem20001221103834_1.htm

  • From next time you should submit atleast the abstract of the article. Atleast I can't sleep tonight cause I my favourite beer page was slashdotted !!

  • Here's the updated link (Score:5)

    by VValdo ( 10446 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @10:41PM (#545761)
    Yes, yes... the link went bad apparently, but I found it here [abc.net.au]

    Also, the story refers to an original article in New Scientist magazine, which can be found here [newscientist.com], although for some reason the link is down for me right now.

    W
    -------------------

  • Re:Three years?? (Score:3)

    by Ptolemarch ( 11506 ) <davidhand@da v i d h a nd.com> on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:58PM (#545762) Homepage
    BTW, the article mentions that there would be no foamy head because that requires gravity. But since it is microgravity, not true 0-g, there would be a slight amount of foam, yes? And couldn't you apply a spin to the barrel to force any bubbles to the surface of the beer?

    First: it really is microgravity. Like, really small.

    Second: Spinning a thing encourages the heavier stuff to move to the outside. So, surprisingly enough (even to me, as I think of this), spinning beer in microgravity would actually make the bubbles go to the middle of the beer.

  • In space, no-one can hear you, er... burp?
  • the link to the article now appears to be broken
    try this url instead
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/space/2000/12 /i tem20001221103834_1.htm
  • ...i.e., you need one. C'mon, relax, forget about your next project deadline for a second, and truly think about the concept of "Beer in Space!" After a while, you might see the point. Of course, it might help if you consume a few beers first yourself...
  • According to this link [spaceflightnow.com], the problem with Cassini's gyros appears to gone away (for now, at least).
  • Yeah, I think about 1 in 3 Apollo astronauts yuled, despite their bravado before the mission.

    What is even scarier is that at least one Apollo astronaut did not have a bowel movement all the way to the moon and back ... that's two weeks... talk about yer low-fiber diets :)

  • Yakking in space? Very common. Off the top of my head I know that Frank Borman, commander of Apollo 8, was quite sick for a while, and Fred Haise, lunar module pilot for the ill-fated Apollo 13, was sick early on. NASA of course has researched this and has a relatively technical paper on what is known as vestibular alterations [nasa.gov], or space sickness.

    The cleanup is to vacuum up the gunk. I'm eating my breakfast right now so I don't want to get into details.

    Shuttle astronauts have an amazing menu to choose from.

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cassini is screwed up. JPL has a problem with that (NOT Lockheed. JPL didn't bother to notice what units were being used for thrust, they just assumed they were metric).

    Why is it even an issue what type of units they're going to use? Of _course_ they assumed metric units, they're engineers. Any firm that uses a system of measurement based on a wooden rod that was destroyed by fire years ago is not qualified to explore outer space.

  • They've put a Wine Bladder (as in a cask bladder) in a keg. BIG DEAL!

    Why bother with the air in the first place. Just use a cask bladder anyway!

    Anyway, back to being drunk. *grin*

  • What a ride (Score:3)

    by Shotgun ( 30919 ) on Thursday December 21, 2000 @05:58AM (#545771)
    The more detailed article that someone else posted talked about the problem of not being able to belch in space. The bubble don't rise in the beer and so get transferred directly to the stomach. The bubbles don't seperate in the stomach either, so the body can't expel the gas while retaining the liquid.

    I could see this providing for a completely new artform and justifying the whole space program. Musicians would travel to space where they would go on a 2week binge. Then they would travel back to earth where they would be put in a decompression chamber. The gas would swell, and now being under gravitational influence, seperate, allowing the musicians sufficient time to compose musical lyrics from the escaping gas.

    Heh, it couldn't be much worse than what they broadcast on the radio.

  • ...and if not, there is an alternate channel for releasing excess gas. May not be too popular in a recycled atmosphere, though.
  • I don't drink beer, so I don't know much about it, but from what i've seen, there are a lot of bubbles in beer.

    Wouldn't beer cause belching at least as much as soda? If so, how is the gas seperated from the liquid in the stomach.

    It seems to me that burping and pukeing would be nearly identical actions. in a zero gravity environment.

  • ...when you step on the gas, you sink back in your seat...

    This has nothing to do with circular motion. Inertia tries to keep you going the same speed, and the back of your seat pushes you forward. You feel like you sink back in your seat, but the seat is actually pushing forward against you.

    ...when you turn left, you move to the right.

    Here inertia tries to keep you going straight; however, your seat, as the centripital force, pushes you to the left. If you move to the right in your seat, then the friction between your pants and the seat is not strong enough to overcome inertia, and you slide until some other force (like you hand holding onto the steering wheel) helps overcome the inertia.

    And if you have force holding the yo yo to the centre of its axis, then you have an equal and opposite force pushing it outwards, away from the centre of its axis.

    Any time you have an acceleration (as is the case in circular movement) the net force is not 0. I can't recall exactly how all the forces add up, but I can tell you that "centrifugal force" is not a part of it. In the case of a yo-yo spinning vertically, gravity has an outward component at every point in the bottom half of the circle. There are no other outward forces since the centripital (the string, held by your hand) always pulls exactly inward, and inertia always tries to go in a line tangential to the point of the yo-yo in its circular path (and therefore has no outward component).

  • It's well-known that CmdrFucko and the rest don't want to admit that a "big bad corporate", who charge thousands for their operating systems, might actually believe in open source.
  • Carbonated beverages (beer, soda, etc) are not used in space as the body relies on gravity to dispose of the excess CO2. So unless you want your stomach to fill up with carbon dioxide, I would recommend sticking to other forms of alcohol. The vodka that the Russians drink seems like a better choice.
  • Here is the link [abc.net.au] to the sotry for those who could not reach it. The link was bad for me so I searched for it.
  • actually, you may have stumbled onto something here. Blood delivery through the normal gravity drip bags is just a non-starter. Could this be an aid to space medicine?

    DB

  • What about hang overs? (Score:3)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:42PM (#545779) Homepage Journal
    I wonder what hang overs would be like in space. And pukes. Ew! Has any astronauts puked in space in the past? If so, then was the yucky stuff floating around? :)

  • I just want to know how does one let out an enormous beer burp in zero-g.
  • But you see, Beer is a manly drink, perhaps the perfection of manliness in a single bottle. What other drink can make a man blech and fart with such ease.

    As far as pornography goes, not all women are feminazis, and some women get a power trip from using their body as a way to manipulate men for their own selfish desires(money, power etc..).
    Obviously you are unfamiliar with the lifestyle of a dominiatrix.

    Done ranting for a bit...
  • The link doesn't work for me. Anyone have a mirror/cache/working link?

    Cheers!

    Mike Roberto
    - GAIM: MicroBerto

  • The page was /.'ed.

    Would someone who read the story please post a summary for the rest of us?

    --
    Spelling by m-w.com [m-w.com].

  • Why did nobody ask the Russians before doing a research about matters that are totally common to them - even in space. May it be vodka, sexual intercourse or (I'm sure ) even puking your brain out of yr head...
  • Nope,that URL has a space in it. It's actually here. [abc.net.au]

  • ©©©moon shots©©©

    I wonder if astronauts have tested the "liquor before beer" rule©©©
    We sure wouldn't want them all drunk and puking their guts out after a wild party at the ISS!

    -the wunderhorn

  • Bob Mitchell said. "This might turn out to have no long-term consequences, but we want to better understand what happened before we proceed with using the wheels more."
    That's not news. Yet.
  • What about gassed, complex organic liquid, eg blood?

    Thanks to Dutch scientists, vampires can now safely attempt intra-stellar travel :)

  • More detail (Score:3)

    by Scrymarch ( 124063 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @10:10PM (#545789)
    Here [fairfax.com.au].
  • Actually I would be willing to bet that probably every astronaught has puked in space.

  • Three years?? (Score:5)

    by donglekey ( 124433 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:45PM (#545791) Homepage
    It took them three years to develop that? Maybe they tested it too much.
  • it says in the article that there would be no foam because it needs gravity to form. Does this mean that beers and colas will never go flat in 0g?(or at least take a lot longer?)
  • I know this is slighty off-topic, but it isn't often that the link to the article slashdot provides is broken, and I figured it should be known. I am feeling "beer in space" deprived now. I was looking forward to reading that, too.

    Perhaps, though, alcohol being a depressant, drinking a little beer before a spacewalk can help to calm the nerves and repress the panic/anxiety attacks that would otherwise endanger the particular mission. I've never heard of one or two cans of beer doing any damage (unless they were thrown) ... so I don't see why a couple beers would cause any damage in space. A kegger might not be to smart, though.

  • I submitted two stories over the last little bit that got turned down.. The first one is Sun Microsystems is now offering the Solaris 8 Kernel SOURCE CODE for free!!

    http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/source [sun.com]

    And the other was that Sun finally fixed TAR for Solaris 2.6 to tar up more than just 18 directories deep. This is pretty interesting stuff that people might want to know about.. this beer in space thing.. I dunno...
  • It is a common misconception that there is no gravity in space. Actually, gravity effects us everywhere, at exactly the same rate, of gravitational force = (G * m1 * m2) / (d^2), where G is 6.67 x 10E-8 dyne * cm^2 / gm^2.
  • That was the last major barrier stopping me from being an astronaut. Now that it's out of the way I might as well volunteer my services....

  • Ping Pong Beer Balls (Score:4)

    by Emugamer ( 143719 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:49PM (#545797) Homepage Journal
    I can see that drinking games in space will be oh so much more fun. Can we say Pac Man?
  • It's safe to go into orbit now, with beer safely waiting in the upper atmosphere.

    Is that why they nicknamed him 'Buzz' Aldrin?

  • Why did this trivial crap get posted while..... (Score:5)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:59PM (#545799)
    an important space story like THIS [spaceflightnow.com] gets ignored?

    IMHO this is pretty serious, if Cassini is forced to use the Reaction Control Subsystem instead of it's gyros for the rest of the mission, I dont see how it could possibly have enough fuel to complete the original length Saturnian tour. And would therefore put the entire 3.4 Billion mission in jeopardy.

  • I realize the novelty and humor in all of this, but what are the real practical applications? I'm trying to think of one, and simply can't. This certainly doesn't seem like the best way to deliver a liquid in space.

    Perhaps the device could be tweaked to only produce, say, a millileter of water. That *might* be a use for it, but I don't know if precise measuring of liquid is that much of an issue in space.

    The article didn't really list any, so does anyone else have any ideas on practical uses for this three and a half years of scientific effort.
  • The team has tested its invention in zero gravity on Earth

    I want to know where they found zero-g on Earth!

    ---
    We've secretly replaced this mathematician's value of pi with 355/113.
    Let's see if he notices!
  • For those afraid of goats:
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/space/2000/12/i tem20001221103834_1.htm

    Beer in space, at ABC [abc.net.au].


    How every version of MICROS~1 Windows(TM) comes to exist.
  • "There actually is no outwards force when you wing something around in a circle"

    I'm humiliated.

    I was under the impression that under circular motion all objects are subject to constant acceleration. Under acceleration, a force exists 180 degrees to the direction of acceleration; which explains why when you step on the gas, you sink back in your seat, or when you turn left, you move to the right.

    How can you have tension in a string without force? And if you have force holding the yo yo to the centre of its axis, then you have an equal and opposite force pushing it outwards, away from the centre of its axis.

    Can't we all just drink a spacebeer and be friends? [myhometechie.com]

  • OK, Let me put this argument to rest. The point of me mentioning acceleration is that the only time force acts on an object is under acceleration [myhometechie.com] in a utopian frictionless space.

    An object moving in a circle is under constant acceleration. Now whether the 2 forces acting on that object are the string pulling inwards and the object wanting to move perfect 180 degress outwards OR a force 90 degrees to the string in the opposite of the direction the object is moving. There is still force acting on that object which can give the same impression as gravity.

    Proof: You can take a bottle of pop, remove the lid and whiz it in a semi-circle over your head completely upside down. The pop will not spew out.

    I could draw diagrams of the forces I perceive, but this simple test proves something will imitate gravitational force on that barrel of beer. Please please, let this prove it. 8-)

  • Re:Three years?? (Score:3)

    by Ace905 ( 163071 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @10:38PM (#545805) Homepage
    Now, if they were trying to find a way to brew beer in space, that would be different. I'm not sure how, if at all, fermentation would be affected by microgravity.

    When you ferment something, Yeast grows exponentially and slowely dies off as the Alcohol content rises. Once a sufficient amount dies, you have to 'rack' the beer/wine/moonshine. This means removing the liquid from the top of the barrel and leaving the dead yeast at the bottom. Otherwise, you end up with a yeasty/moldy smelling drink.

    Without gravity the yeast would not drop, and the dead yeast ("lees") would make it a colloid mixture of pretty gross proportions.

    On another note, someone mentioned centrifical force would force carbonation to the centre of a barrel, which would be useless. This is only true if the barrel were spun so both ends were cut symmetrically in two: meaning the spinning of the barrel on its own, would force the liquid to both ends, and carbonation to the middle.

    If the barrel were placed inside a large circle which spun, then carbonation would rise. During fermentation - yeast would drop. This is due to the fact that the bottom of barrel would be moving fastest, and subject to the largest amount of centrifical force. As you move away from the bottom, each slice of the barrel is moving in a smaller and smaller circle, and is therefore under less centrifical force. This produces force in a downwards-direction, the same as gravity.

    I'm speaking of the large circular rooms we all love from 2001.

    I have too much time on my hands, I know. [myhometechie.com]

  • shouldn't a nitrogen-powered keg (Guinness) work?

    probably not --- there's no assurance that once you pump gas in, it goes to the top of the keg and the beer stays at the bottom by the output pipe, because there's no such thing as "top" and "bottom" in space :)

  • Seems like the researchers spent a lot of time developing a solution when one was already available. The Party Pig [homebrewery.com] is a small pressurized keg that uses an expanding pouch to force the beer out. The researchers should have just bought one of these kegs and spent the rest of their funding experimenting with filling and emptying the keg.
  • Damn.. that's broken, too.

    --

  • you could spin the bottle about an axis that runs perpendicular to the length of the bottle and through the neck. This would cause the foam to flow to the center, which is, in this case, the neck.
    ~~~
  • 3.5 years and how much money spent to duplicate the same idea that homebrewers have been using for a long time ala : http://www.partypig.com/overview.html [partypig.com]
    Good Job Folks!
  • ...with our new 28 hour days [dbeat.com] and 13 month years [slashdot.org] we'll have even more time to enjoy said beer/porn.

    Excellent...

  • New Scientist magazine reports the revolutionary container has a flexible membrane which contains the beer inside the barrel. Air is pumped between the barrel wall and the membrane to force the beer out.

    membrane ('mem-"brAn) n. - Dutch for "funnel"

    Also opens opportunities for:

    membraned ('mem-"brAnd) adj. - Slang for extreme drunken behavior

  • Alien V: In Space, Nobody can hear you belch.
  • ...when we find beer cans and cigarette butts floating along the spaceways.

  • Re:carbonation... (Score:3)

    by BurpingWeezer ( 199436 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @10:34PM (#545815)
    I doubt it. The bubbles are the result of pressure differences between the CO2 gas in the drink and the air. If the pressure was higher in spacecraft/spacestation then the bubble would come out slower. If it was lower, which it ususally is in spacecraft, then it would come out faster.

    THe only reason you can't get foam is because the bubble have to connect together and usually they wont without gravity pushing down on them to squish them together.

    You'd also need a container to hold htem close to each other. Ever spill a drink on the floor? The foam comes and goes very fast but can't stay together since there is no container.

  • Coke In Space? (Score:3)

    by Scooby71 ( 200937 ) on Thursday December 21, 2000 @02:23AM (#545816)
    Not sure I understand why this is such a big deal - is it just because they managed to do it with a keg of beer?

    In the Science museum in London there is a Coke can with a special adaptor that IIRC was used on one of the moon shots, so late 60s or early 70s (Coke thought it would be good publicity) - if the adaptor worked with a can of Coke it would surely work with a can of beer. BTW the astronauts said that Coke was strangely unsatisfying in zero-G - tasted odd.


  • Under acceleration, a force exists 180 degrees to the direction of acceleration

    Acceleration is simply a change in velocity. Velocity has both a direction and a speed component, so acceleration is a change in either direction or speed.

    How can you have tension in a string without force? And if you have force holding the yo yo to the centre of its axis, then you have an equal and opposite force pushing it outwards, away from the centre of its axis.

    You have inertia, not a centrifugal force. The yo yo wants to keep going straight, but the string has to pull it to change the direction of the yo yo.
  • Dag-nab it! Ban the word 'weightless'! In their free-fall, orbiting craft do have this nasty habit of negating most of the effects of gravity. As far as carbonated beverage are concerned, they are all a very VERY bad idea. The gas in the consumed beverage acts just like the water bubbles you see in those on-orbit videos. It all comes together in a minimal-surface-area ball smack dab in the middle of your gut. Won't go down, won't go up. So you don't burp or fart it gradually - but when you de-orbit something very nasty will happen when it all emerges at once. And yes, people do yakk in space - many astronauts keep a waste bag velcro'd to their suit - on their shoulder if handy - for the first day or three. Missing sucks, but they get plenty of practice on the parabolic test flights.
  • Trivial? Let me explain this more slowly. They have found a way to serve beer. In space. That is an Amazing Achievement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cassini is screwed up. JPL has a problem with that (NOT Lockheed. JPL didn't bother to notice what units were being used for thrust, they just assumed they were metric). Beer in Space is a precursor to true Geeks in Space. Once you can deliver a pizza (and not the crappy, dehydrated kind) to the ISS, then we'll be lining up at Cape Canavral or Sunnyvale. Anyway, shouldn't a nitrogen-powered keg (Guinness) work? Or any other frat-powered, pump-it-yourself keg, for that matter?

    If this post is incoherent, let me just say I've been verifying that Ground-based Beer distribution works. Works fine here, Houston.
  • If I was responsible for taking care of multiblillion dollar space stations I wouldn't trust myself with a cup of coffee. Certainly not with a pint(or.. 7) of ale.
  • Watch Apollo 13 -- live footage of someone puking in zero G, all aboard the aptly named "Vomit Comit".

    ------------------------------

  • However, there is no foamy head, as gas bubbles need gravity to rise.

    That the missions that have a centrifuge on board will be much more popular.

  • On Earth, an inert gas such as carbon dioxide is used to force the brew out of the bottom of the container and up the spout.

    I haven't had Chemistry for a while now, but I do believe mixing carbon dioxide with a liquid yields carbonic acid. Not really inert. I know, I know... nit picking.
  • BUT.... if you spun it around the top of the bottle, then the bubbles would come towards the top of the bottle, like if you grabbed the top of the bottle, and swung your arm around....

    spinning the bottle around the y axis (the long axis) would not have much effect, because there is no gravity, and not enough friction against the inside of the bottle to actually get the beer to rotate.... though the thought of bubbles gathering at the center of an object is extremly interesting, it would require a lot of effort, or slight modifications to the inside of the bottle

  • but...but.... (Score:5)

    by mtvsucks ( 223302 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:52PM (#545825)
    wow, beer and cartoon porn stories posted in the same day. good work guys. glad to see you are keeping on top of the importent stuff.

    ---
    pack

  • Now that's something I want to see, not that I drink beer. But a spheroid of microgravity beer, with the foam in the center. It sounds like it would look pretty interesting.

    Kierthos
  • Yeah, but there's not much we can do about it from here. Whereas, according to the great and powerful controllers of /., a beer in space is much more newsworthy.

    Scratch that, I have no idea how they choose what stories they post. Maybe by some statistical method, like flipping a coin.

    After careful consideration, I have to wonder: wtf? Big deal, an astronaut can have a cold one in space. The Russians have probably been drinking vodka in space for years, so it's not like the "Final Frontier" has been alcohol free or anything. About the only thing that this story might have in common with the slightest bit of scientific application is that a similar container could be used to house chemical reactions that produce gases for microgravity experiments.

    But you'd think that would have been mentioned. As it is, this reads like a reject story from the Onion.

    Kierthos
  • Maybe they wanted a beer container that would spew beer all over the inside of the shuttle when it was opened.... but then, what's wrong with using a squeeze bottle.

    Now, if they were trying to find a way to brew beer in space, that would be different. I'm not sure how, if at all, fermentation would be affected by microgravity.

    BTW, the article mentions that there would be no foamy head because that requires gravity. But since it is microgravity, not true 0-g, there would be a slight amount of foam, yes? And couldn't you apply a spin to the barrel to force any bubbles to the surface of the beer?

    Kierthos
  • "And you thought mir had problems before!!!:) I'm sure one of the excuses for needing beer in space is to "improve their vision"....:)"

    How else do you think they can convince them to go up there?

    "Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
  • Beer is the greatest invention on Earth. Just stop drinking that megaswill budmilloors and have some homebrew or go buy some good beer. geez, what an uninformed opinion.
  • 'Cause we engineers know that there's no such thing as centrifugal force. Centripital force exists, yes. It is the force that holds a spinning object to the centre of its axis - example, the tension (force of) in the string attached to the yo-yo you're winging around your head.

    There actually is no outwards force when you wing something around in a circle.
  • You hit the nail on the head there.

    I can't recall exactly how all the forces add up

    In the case of the yo-yo whirling about your head, the two balanced forces are the tension in the string pulling the yo-yo in, and with equal force pulling your hand (holding the other end of the string) out. Through muscluar control and friction, this force is transferred from your hand to the earth. Balance acheived.
  • Ok, maybe I'm missing something - but how did they overcome gravity on earth to test this? I've heard of the "airplane drop" so simulate 0g, but that's all I know of. Is there some technology to create 0g on earth now?
  • Those Dutch people are just like the Ferengi. They'd do anything to make a little profit....

    207th rule of acquisition: Heineken is like sex in a canoe:
    Fuckin' close to water
  • Could this be applied to Big Gulps [cjb.net] perhaps????




  • everyone knows that pizza is the best thing to eat with beer...
  • damn, how do I make a gravity-bong with no gravity? Theres something that merits a bit of research..
  • needs to be sent back up on the shuttle to test this one out.
  • One of the things that will happen when space is truely conquered is that a hash trail will be set (a kind of paperchase, not an illegal substance). The problem is drinking the beer afterwards.

    I am glad to see that some useful reseach is taking place to address this issue. There have been hashes held in many parts of the world, even onboard a Jumbo jet and it is a vital form of recreation for expat engineers. You can't get much more expat than the ISS!!!!! Note there have been underwater hashes, but I have not heard of the beer consumption problem being solved there, but it is easier to return to the surface than to reenter the atmosphere.

    To find out more about this kind of hash, try searching the web for Hash House Harriers or check out this link [frankfurt-hash.de].

  • The zero-gravity keg bong!

    --The Kid
  • The "zero-gravity pretzel" huh? That would be an edible mobius toriod that we could wash down with this beer out of a Klein Stein [kleinbottle.com].
  • Waddayamean? Practical applications? Didn't you notice this was reported on an Australian site? This opens the way for us down under to make it up over without dying from a lack of nutrition!
  • I agree, we should be spending more time and money (not just $$$, but other countries as well). Since outside of Japan and China the traditional incentives for space activities are waning in their effectiveness in maintaining budgets, I think that maybe Beer in space will act as a new incentive to appeal to the masses and maybe get them to realize, hey, space is for me! Sorry about the long sentence.
  • Okay, so beer in space won't help with problems like fluid loss or loss of coordination brought about by the microgravity environment, but it will help keep moral up on those long, long missions. I'm sure the Russians have already brought Vodka to space, their culture being a little less plagued by puritanical fanatacism. Beer in space will certainly make it a more attractive place for space tourism, and Casino's which are right now only pondering space voyages, might see the light now! Of course, it is crucial that the Beer is dutch, because if we started sending US domestic beers to space no one would ever go again! Talk about space debris!
  • the link is dead! any mirrors? we really should start mirroring articles instead of linking them..


  • Here ya go...

    Scientists develop space ale

    Dutch scientists are on their way to cracking one of the most urgent problems of the space era - how an astronaut can get a decent beer in zero gravity.

    The first challenge has been how to get the ale out of the barrel.

    Researchers from the Delft University of Technology have spent three-and-a-half years on the dilemma and now appear to have the ideal barrel.

    Britain's New Scientist magazine reports the revolutionary container has a flexible membrane which contains the beer inside the barrel.

    Air is pumped between the barrel wall and the membrane to force the beer out.

    The team has tested its invention in zero gravity on Earth and found the beer plopped neatly out of the tap, floating in identical, ping-pong ball-sized amounts.

    However, there is no foamy head, as gas bubbles need gravity to rise.


  • If you based the keg off a piston, then it wouldn't matter what gas is used. Gas in one end, presses "down" on the platter, forcing theliquid out the other end. Just have to work out the logistics of pressure and flow control.

    Cheers,
    p_r
  • it's quite easy to force oneself to burp. hence, no excess CO2.

    ------

    Shhhhh....there's a dead body in my trunk.
    Wanna see it? Fuck around and you'll be it!
  • It wouldn't happen that way... the energy of the bubbles would push the spheroid out in all directions... the beer would dissipate of it's own gas. Be pretty interersting to watch, thouh.

  • mmm, beer (Score:5)

    by c_g12 ( 262068 ) <c_g12NO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:45PM (#545850)
    For their next study, scientists will be researching the zero-gravity pretzel.
  • Why is it when beer is brought up, people begin to act like jackasses? The IQ level dropped a few points on averavge base upon earlier posts (0 points currently, and -1 soon, I'm sure).
  • It's fitting that beer should happen in space. After all, it's one of the oldest beverages in the world, even older than wine, so the irony of its juxtaposition with modern spaceflight is even more apparent. It's especially fitting that it should be announced today, since today is the winter solstice and beer played an important role in so many druidic cults that hold the solstice in such high regard. I'm just left wondering why they didn't get more sponsorship from Budweiser or another big brand.

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