11-Year-Old Coloradan Will Brew Beer In Space, By Proxy

minty3 writes "An 11-year-old Colorado boy may have found a way to literally make a beer that's out of this world. Michal Bodzianowski, a sixth grader at Douglas County's STEM School and Academy in Highlands Ranch, Colo., recently won a national competition where his beer-making experiment will be flown to the International Space Station." Noting that beer is safer than contaminated water, Bodzianowski pointed out that beer could be useful “in future civilization as an emergency backup hydration and medical source."

Centrifuge

[Scottingham]

I would imagine that you would have to centrifuge it to get the yeasties to settle properly as they do back on Terra Ferma. Also, I doubt the bubble airlock would work properly in zero g as well.

The concept is still pretty interesting though. I wonder how the yeast-sugar interaction would be in zero g.

Re:Um no

[gstoddart]

All this article tells me is that the judges were idiots and Colorado alcoholic rednecks start pretty young.

Right. And I'm sure that NASA didn't consider any of these things before they decided it would be sent up on a payload, and the The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education haven't considered any of these issues. Nosiree. Just a bunch of idiots who lack your brilliant insight.

Or, alternatively, it's an experiment which has merit, which is why it was selected.

My money is on the latter option.