Drinking in space! Is there any way our species could better demonstrate our dominance over existence? Well, yes. There is one other thing we could be doing in space (hint: each other), but NASA haven’t published their research on that. Rest assured that as soon as the Kármán High Club becomes a thing, we’ll be there.
Until the sex happens, we’ll stick to drink. (A plan already utilized by many in the gravity well). Which is why we’re looking at the past and future of exoplanetary alcohol.
Neil Armstrong may be the first person to step on another world, but Buzz Aldrin was the first to drink there. Thereby making his first-name as apropos as it is awesome. He got special permission from NASA to take communion and sacramental wine in the capsule on the lunar surface. I hope you’re listening, God: Buzz got permission from NASA to do your stuff. Because so far they have more proof of getting people into the heavens (and of getting some proof to people in the heavens).
“Race you!”
Buzz reports that the low-gravity wine swirled like syrup, an effect which will give the Moon’s molecular mixologists a whole new way to play with drink. It goes without saying that all scientific advances should immediately be applied to cocktail construction. We already have gamma ray mutation to thank for many minty mouthfuls, and nitrogen has given us fresh foams. All we need now is some sort of particle-colliding muddler and a low-gravity flair bar and we’ll be set.
NASA’s next round shifted the spirits from sacrament to sherry. They fortified a specially space-capable style which could withstand the stresses of launch as well as being easy to drink in orbit. Unfortunately word of the space-sherry was leaked before the launch, which this was even worse than leaking the real thing afterwards, because at least in zero g they could have slurped up the floating blobs.
The news spawned a surprisingly vehement mob of Space Prohibitionists. Who were presumably jealous that astronauts were already so much cooler than them, and therefore dedicated their do-nothing lives to stopping astronauts from getting any cooler. These land-locked liquor-losers kicked up such a stink it convinced NASA that they weren’t worth the hassle, scrubbing the space-sherry. After all, drink is meant to help you become more interesting, not attract incredibly boring people to bother you. When you’re telling rocket scientists and distilllers to stop what they’re doing, you’re the enemy of all human progress.
“I EXIST ONLY TO MAKE THINGS SLIGHTLY WORSE!”
Space prohibitionists are the most depressingly dystopic science-fiction we’ve ever heard of, and it’s science fact. Luckily they’re also history (along with equine anal warts and other problems associated with dealing with horse’s asses), so Bombass & Parr released a limited edition “Parabolic Sherry,” based on the researched blend, was available for Earthly consumption. Sure, you’re not actually using it in orbit, but it’s worth raising a glass just to spite such losers a half-century later. Besides, it turns out that space sherry still works when you drink it on the ground.
If only there had been another space superpower famous for not being swayed by whiners or public opinion. Oh, hello, USSR! The cosmonauts carried cognac, because space and mass limits are major problems in space travel: of course you want a more efficient fuel. Flight Engineer Alexander Lazutkin explained .”..we had alcoholic drinks in the cosmonauts” rations. This was cognac, which the doctors recommended for use. We used it to stimulate our immune system and on the whole keep our organisms in tone.”
That’s a man you’d want to have a drink with in any location.
But what about beer? Well, we’re working on it. In 2001, University of Colorado graduate Kirsten Sterett sent a sample beer-brewing experiment into orbit on a space shuttle. Funded by Coors, the experiment brewed only a single milliliter of orbital beer. Which she still drank. Which wasn’t much proof of the beer, but definitely proved that she was a recent college graduate.
More recently, then-11-year-old Michal Bodzianowski designed an experiment to test the effects of microgravity on brewing beer. It’s already been and gone on the world’s ultimate beer run. That’s the kind of future-forward thinking scientists need. He won’t be able to drink for years, but he’s working right now to make sure that the coolest bar possible will be ready in time.
The problem is that beer doesn’t really work in space. And not just because the room is already spinning. The real problem is that if there’s no down, then there’s no way bubbles can rise up, and the beer loses its head. Guzzling the gassy beer anyway results in astronauts filled with fart-propulsion and burp-boosters, and while I’ve just written the entire script for Seth Rogen’s inevitable space comedy, it isn’t much fun for real people. Another way it’s like a Seth Rogen comedy.
About as welcome as a fart in a, well, you know.
Even if we can’t drink beer in space, we can bring it back. Sapporo’s “Space Barley” beer was brewed from barley bred from astro-crops grown on the International Space Station. Even at $100 a six-pack, people had to enter a lottery just to be able to buy the beer. But then, a valid drinking reason to genuinely say something is out of this world is priceless. Sure, the beer isn’t really from space, it’s just a cool story, but that’s like half the hope and point of any night out anyway. Especially since those expensively-earned proceeds went to space science research and promoting children’s education. So (sort of) space-drinking actively makes people smarter.
Getting smarter by the second!
We’ve even got Vostok Space Beer, aiming to create a low-bubble high-taste brew specifically for space tourism. (One of the less advertised effects of space travel is how your tongue expands at the expense of your sense of taste). Named for the Soviet space program which first put people in space, and the spacecraft which did it. Whether beer in space makes sense or not, we’ll always raise a drink to that. Which is also Vostok Beer’s entire business plan.
But to get back into orbit: we want a drink without bubbles, we know that stronger spirits are better, and while we’re at it we might as well make a super-space drink that can’t be distillled on Earth. Microgravity has all kinds of interesting effects on fluid processes. An absence of up and down means processes can happen equally in all directions at once. Which reminds me of my dancing ability, but I don’t have the excuse of zero gravity.
It’s either total gravitational failure or Caucasian rhythm.
More usefully, microgravity means enhanced fermentation. Without gravity to drag them down, yeast cells can access nutrients more effectively, turbocharging their conversion of sugars into alcohol. Just in case you weren’t clear on how natural it is that we go to space.
Much more important than alcohol is taste. (If all you want is powerful alcohol, your required tech level drops from “space program” to “paint thinner”). We break the whiskey barrier into whole new worlds of flavor from the interaction of alcohol with wooden barrels. Which doesn’t sound so high tech, but space warehouses would be the best place to maximize their maturation. Because floating materials don’t separate by density, various components can spend far longer in contact, just floating around, interacting and making each other much more interesting by exchanging things. Which is the whole point of whisky and other people. (Whether those things are stories or fluids entirely depends on how well things are going).
That’s why vials of charred oak spent three years orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station, and are now being compared against a control kept in Ardbeg Warehouse 3. (Whiskey warehouses act as mission control for many of our decisions too).
It’ll do far more for us monkeys than that monolith. (Source: Ardbeg)
The future of the finest fluids known to man is even now being studied. Which is why it’s important that we continue our research on Earth.
Drink up!
Luke McKinney writes about games, drink, science, and everything else that makes life amazing. He’s a columnist on Cracked and writes for several beer magazines. He’s also available for hire. Follow him on Tumblr and Twitter @lukemckinney.
Luke did a science experiment of his own when he pondered What’s the Focal Length of Whiskey?
Science MUST know the effects of doing science drunkenly!
