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Space

Beer In Space 149

Posted by michael from the long-neck-squeeze-bottles dept.
Saint Aardvark writes: "Check it out...NASA recently sent up an experiment to see how well beer could be brewed in space. The result? One millilitre of space brew. Can orbital microbrew be far behind?" They've been making great strides since our first Beer in Space article.
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Beer In Space More

Beer In Space

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  • Mmmmmm... orbital brew.....
  • You can imagine what the ISS would be like with a couple of tipsy astronauts/cosmonauts, etc.
  • No drinking and driving a space shuttle.
    • I recall a classic bit from way back about other discoveries of beer and/or alchohol and other organics found floating free in space.

      Imagine pictures of Spock as the designated driver while Kirk and McCoy are out on the ship hull sucking in as much alchohol as possible.

      Heck, it might even be in the Slashdot archives someplace

  • Um... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sounds like they've already got an orbital microbrew.

    They need to start thinking about macrobrewing, if you ask me.
  • If you got drunk and puked, and the puke wouldn't fall because of gravity than you could choke on it.
    • Actually, you wouldn't choke.

      In Space, since there is no gravity, the vomit will continue in the direction that you puked at the velocity of which it exited your body (ignoring friction with the air).

      So, you couldn't choke because it will glide in midair until it hits something.
  • I can't wait for thye first beer related accedent. We can start a chapter for
    M - others
    A - gainst
    D - runk
    D - Driveing -and-
    A - sternaut
    S - afety
    S - tandards
  • One millilitre of space brew. Can orbital microbrew be far behind?"

    Sounds like they've got 1000 microbrews already.

  • Beer gooood!!!
  • I mean that would kinda suck. Although light is better than nothing I guess ...

    pherris

  • BISS (Score:1)

    by bozo42 ( 68206 )

    You may be too young to remember this beer commercial

    It don't get no better than BISS!

    Brewski of International Space Station.

    When you need to piss,
    Think BISS!!


  • Everybody meet me at that new microbrewery... Meet me at the elevators at 5:25, and we will take my plane [slashdot.org]
  • As if Coors wasn't light enough already
  • Now a good second step would be to grow weed and later test it on a willing subject. Now that's an astronaut's diary I'd like to read.
    • Star date 09212001,

      Today I was the first subject to ever get stoned in space. It took an abnomally short amount of time for the cotton mouth to kick in. Note that I bumped my helmet on the floor of the station, and just laughed for hours. during the 4 hour experiment, my recordings show that I sat laughing, farting, and pissing myself for 3.98 hours. Tomarrow, I will lend my body to the betterment of man kind by being the first person to inject tar in space...

      god I love this job...

      Hi MOM!!!!
    • Fires snuff themselves out in space. You need gravity to allow heat to rise sufficiently enough to cause convection, which brings fresh oxygen to the fire. I think you'd need to look at alternative methods of ingestion.

      I might suggest a vaporizer. These things heat up the weed to the point of vaporization, and are often sourced by an electric heating element. That should work in space.
  • Fools [space.com]...

    Dancin Santa

    Your comment violated the postercomment compression filter. Comment aborted
  • because at $1400 for a glass of SpaceAle, I'm voting for "Free Beer" over "Free Speech".
  • NASA has once again spared us no expense in improving the quality of life through researching...well...something that is entirely possible on our own planet, without having to pay for a huge, fuel-draining rocket.

    Ah, how I love the human race ; )

    • Wait until you see their next joint-venture with Starbucks...
    • Obviously you didn't read the article about how they make microbes that produce antibiotics and exotic enzymes through fermentation, and this experiment is useful for medical purposes.

      At the same time, if Coors and Coca-Cola want to subsidize our space program, then I'm all for it. They paid their way, and that got dozens of other experiments into orbit.

      And, quite frankly, if not now, then when? If the final objective is to live and work in space, then these questions *do* have to be asked. Your ancestors were explorers - they traveled from one place to another. It's part of human expansion, and a damn sight better than killing each other for finite resources here on earth.

      --
      Evan

  • Question: "How do you dispense a beverage and keep the carbonation in solution until the person is ready to drink?" Stodieck asks. "That's the challenge."

    Answer: Party Pig [homebrewery.com]

    The Party Pig uses a self-expanding pouch to maintain pressure in a 2.25 gallon beer keg. Because it doesn't rely on adding carbon dioxide to maintain pressure, it is well suited for use in space.

    BTW, I currently own 4 Party Pigs and a 20 gallon oak barrel, currently filled with a Belgian Lambic Ale.

    A word of advice to all the /.ers under the drinking age. Don't take up home brewing Freshman year in college like me just because you can buy the supplies to make beer. Oops, did I just give you information? Please ignore the power of that information.

    • A word of advice to all the /.ers under the drinking age. Don't take up home brewing Freshman year in college like me just because you can buy the supplies to make beer.

      Well, I can do one better -- 20 years ago, when I was a freshman, my roommate and I built a still with equipment we bought from the chem department. It made something rather like Everclear, albeit with a slight rubber taste from the surgical tubing we used to join all the glass bits. What we didn't drink, we'd pour under the doors of neighboring dorm rooms & light on fire -- we got to meet lots of people that way.


  • In heaven there is no beer,

    that's why we drink it here...

  • I mean, how could they get anyone to sign up for a three year trip if there wasn't going to be beer on board?
  • Damn, and here I was thinking that space wasn't good for anything except satellites and satellite accessories. Just think, this potentially has applications for everything from homebrewing to commercial zymurgy! Boy, keep on funding the space program, it's paying for itself EVERY GoDDAMNED DAY!

    It's like the ants and tiny screws, that had applications for everything from watchmaking to watch repair!

    Remember kids, Simpsons references == karma!
  • "Amerrican asstonaut beerr is bad" When interviewed by an international news agency.
  • Mmmmm... beer.
    Now if they could only somehow smuggle potato chips on board. As long as they're not ruffled, and they don't clog the instruments.

    Let's see... IIRC 1000 ml = 1 liter and 1 liter of water = 1 kg. There's 2.2 lb per kg and it costs $10,000 to lift 1 lb into orbit. It costs $22,000 to lift 1 kg or 1 liter into orbit or $22.00 per ml. Add to that the cost of hauling up the homebrew equipment that is one expensive brew.

    "This beer better be the best tastin' beer in the world." - Barny Gumble
  • Seriously, this could be a good thing, cuz after a long hard day of fixing solar panels, aligning antennas and getting in and out of a space suit, I can imagine how good it would be to unwind with a brew. Problem is, a sixpack, at a total of 6 ml just ain't what I'd have in mind. Still, can't have slap-happy astronauts (tho ya gotta wonder if any cosmonauts smuggled a little vodka up to Mir :)


    As a home brewer, though, I expect they'd have to go straight DME, as doing an all grain job would be quite a mess, sparging and all. Now there's something for NASA engineers to work out!

    • The vodka-on-mir thing would certainly explain the fires, crashes, etc. Don't drink and drive supply ships.
    • They didn't need to smuggle, they were [themoscowtimes.com] sent [cnn.com] some! [nandotimes.com]

      my favorite:

      When the Mir crew ran out of alcohol reserves, they would often go on "treasure-seeking" expeditions for more, tearing down interior panels to find bottles hidden by previous crews, said Alexander Poleshchuk, who spent six months on board Mir in 1993.
    • I think they would have more problem than just sparging and trying to open a bag of DME in zero Gee. (Ever open a bag of DME in ZG? Believe me, you don't want to do it!)

      Eventually you get a suitable wort somehow. Then you add some yeast. These yeasties start fermenting away and giving off CO2. Where does this CO2 go? Nowhere! Your big globule of wort will soon end up looking like a floating sponge. Then if you manage that problem, you might wind up with a naturally carbonated bottle of ESB. Then you crack open that bottle and you wind up with nothing but foam everywhere but in the bottle.
  • NASA recently sent up an experiment to see how well beer could be brewed in space.

    ..government funding hard at work!

  • If this was done by belgium people I could see the headlines :
    Drunk pilot crashes Shulte in Atlantic, 5000L beer spilled in ocean!! Nasa will install breathezizers on shutle
  • I hope that stuff is better than that Tang crap NASA came up with during the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo days.

    Well, I guess it's beer so who cares who good it tastes as long as it's cheap and potent, right?

  • Beer must be considered very precious on the ISS.

    "Alright, who drank the sample?!"
  • This post-graduate is a woman who has experience brewing beer...in space. If that isn't Mrs. Right, then I'll never meet her.
  • So can anyone come up with an actual use for this? I am no expert on brewing or space travel and was wondering if there could be a practical use for this. Anyone?
  • Can orbital microbrew be far behind? If one millilitre isn't a microbrew, I don't know what is.
  • As a raging alcoholic, I firmly advocate the utilization of multi-billion dollar technology to create an orbital version of a substance only slightly less common than water.
  • Duffman thinks the ISS needs a mascot! Hoh yeah! *thrust*
  • It sounds like they used a bottom fermenting yeast... how would that have compared with a top fermenter? I personally don't drink heavily carbonated beers, prefering ales and *Guinness*. It's hardly a surprise that they used a bottom fermenting yeast consider Coors sponsored the event: they make a beer that uses carbonation as one of the mechanisms for hiding the flavour. (The other mechanism is of course refridgeration). I wonder if a top-fermenting yeast used in space would give a more carbonated ale? But, at the end of the day, this being Coors, they're looking at ways of increasing alcohol content without regard to taste (which is why brewers in Coor's league freeze their beers).
    • It is not hard to increase the alcohol content of beer above the crap they sell at stores, the problem is that by adding more fermentables they might actually add some flavor to the beer, and then they wouldn't be selling piss water anymore.

      • Re:Ale vs. Lager (Score:2, Informative)

        by Malc ( 1751 )
        A pissy lager with 5% alcohol content is not natural. This can only be achieved by freezing the beer and removing the ice, thus artificially raising the alcohol content. Beer brewed naturally with high alcohol content is much harder to produce. In my opinion/experience, anything above 7% is not nice: either sickly sweet (try Roger and Out @12.5% at the Frog and Parrott in Sheffied, England) or just nasty like Carlsberg Special Brew or Tenents Super. Most beers with a lot of flavour that are popular don't have high alcohol content, e.g. Guinness is at 4.2%. It's so sad, beer is sold on alcohol content as computers are sold on CPU MHz. Oh well, each to their own.
    • If you read my posting here, it will be a MAJOR challenge to make alcoholic beverages in the microgravity of Earth orbit, given that most alcoholic beverages by nature requires gravity to control the fermenting process.

      We'll have to completely reinvent the fermenting process by using a totally new type of yeast, for starters. Who knows how will we try to make a hard liquor like Scotch, vodka, sake or Japanese shochu in space.
  • All you need is a giant space stomach for all that space beer in the evening and you can get some great propulsion in the morning.
  • One millilitre, huh?

    With proper respects to John Madden, I guess it's settled.


    Less filling!


  • There is already plenty [osu.edu] of alcohol [hawaii.edu] in space [space.com].



    Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.

  • we all know that alcohol as astronauts don't mix...this gives ``drunk driving'' a whole new meaning ;)
  • Nice to know that NASA has thier priorities straight. I wonder what napkin they dreampt this little venture on and when it is going on ebay?

    Forget trying to build the IIS, I want to focus on getting beer up there. The really important stuff.

    And I laughed when Jerry Sienfeld joked about bring a car to the moon; how it was the ultimate male idea. Brining a car to the moon so we coule drive around.
    Now we have beer...guess they'll have to make it illegal to drive drunk on the moon aswell, before we have an accident.
  • i'm sure some of those naughty cosmonauts have been brewing the good stuff up there for years! share the wealth man...share the wealth. maybe they've found the best shot at making space profitable (read: sell us space beer. we pay money.)
  • Kirsten Sterrett, recently a University of Colorado graduate student, first became interested in how beer would brew in space while working at the Coors Brewing Company.

    Considering she worked for Coors, maybe she should first become interested in how beer is brewed on Earth.

    If you're interested in beer on Earth, check out the Fremont Oktoberfest [fremontoktoberfest.org] this weekend in Seattle!

  • Sex (been there), beer (done that), ...

    Space rocks, man!

  • you can't get beers in space, I will refuse to leave earth! :p

  • We'll be singing


    When we're winning


    We'll be singing


    I get knocked down


    But I dont give a shit


    Cos in space there ain't no up or down


    Pissing the night away


    Pissing the night away


    He drinks a whisky drink


    He drinks a vodka drink


    He drinks a lager drink


    He drinks a cider drink


    He sings the songs that remind him


    Of the good times


    He sings the songs that remind him


    Of the better times:


    "We could walk for ever


    walking on


    walking on the moon..."


    I get knocked down


    But I don't give a shit


    Cos in space there ain't no up or down


    Pissing the night away


    Pissing the night away


    He drinks a whisky drink


    He drinks a vodka drink


    He drinks a lager drink


    He drinks a cider drink


    He sings the songs that remind him


    Of the good times


    He sings the songs that remind him


    Of the better times:


    "This is ground control to Major Tom


    Take your protein pill and put your helmet on..."



    I get knocked down


    But I don't give a shit


    Cos in space there ain't no up or down


    We'll be singing


    When we're winning


    We'll be singing

  • Time to send up some master brewers with a few tons of hops and malt. Let them play with various batches and send the "space brew" back to earth.

    Hell, I'd pay about $100 for a drink of space brew if it had orbited the earth a few thousand times. NASA could send up the raw materials on cheap(er) rockets, and sell the brew for a good profit. A few thousand litres could pay for a shuttle flight.

    the AC
  • It's NASA's new funding model. With Congressional support going down and other monies being directed to the "war", they thught they needed some other source of funds.... Soooo.... Next month the brewery module is being attached to the ISS. =;]

    -sig
  • Folks,

    I think it's going to be one heck of a challenge to make alcoholic beverages in the microgravity environment of space.

    The reason is simple: just about every alcoholic beverage requires the use of gravity to control the fermenting process. There will be no such thing as top-fermented (British-style) beer or bottom-fermented (Central European-style) beer, for starters.

    I wouldn't be surprised that a major Germany brewery or a British brewery will sponsor a major test of how beer brews in space that will be run on the Columbus module on the International Space Station.
  • I guess it must be pretty easy to pour a black & tan in zero-grav, no?
  • The further someone is from the protection of Earth's atmosphere the more they are exposed to Solar radiation. One of the big problems with brewing beer is to keep the yeast the same - not have it mutating on you.

    It seems to me that brewing in space without complete shielding would leave the process defenceless against producing a truly vile beer.

    I'd be more impressed if they did some distilling. Moon moonshine would be an accomplishment and the process is dangerous/more daring.:)

    IMHO, as per

    J:)
  • Does anyone know how beer bubbels in zero gravity?
    Does it bubble at all? In if so... what will they do? Will the bubbles just float around at random, increasing in size by collision?
  • Check out my weird-but-true article
    "Fat Slobs in Space."

    I've worked with the Space program many years...

    "... First of all, being seriously overweight might just be the best way to avoid the motion sickness that plagues a third of astronauts in orbit.... if you are grossly obese, we cannot get you sick."
  • Check out my weird-but-true article
    "Fat Slobs in Space."

    URL is:
    http://magicdragon.com/ComputerFutures/
    SpacePublications/Food.html

    I've worked with the Space program many years...

    "... First of all, being seriously overweight might just be the best way to avoid the motion sickness that plagues a third of astronauts in orbit.... if you are grossly obese, we cannot get you sick."

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