Beer in Space

Let’s start by saying that when you’re truly miles away from ordinary — ie, in space — drinking one of these is no swing in the hammock.

We don’t raise this issue because of Endeavor’s successful launch yesterday with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams on board. On shorter missions such as shuttle flights, we side with the teetotalers — astronauts can do without.

And they generally do, with some exceptions. "Small amounts of alcohol were apparently allowed on the Soviet space station Mir, and when Russian astronauts joined the International Space Station, there were some grumblings about the decree that it be dry," according to NewScientistSpace.

And in 1969, "Buzz Aldrin took communion after landing on the Moon, sipping wine from a small chalice. In the Moon’s feeble gravity, he later wrote, the wine swirled like syrup around the cup."

But when you start talking about multi-year voyages to Mars, for example, the question of beer in space — or any carbonated beverage, for that matter — becomes more than just a question at the bottom of your glass. Keeping astronauts on such extended voyages happy is a concern, and while kegstands in zero G aren’t likely to ever appear on the rec schedule, an occasional beer or even soda pop might help astronauts relax during the 2-year haul to Mars.

One of the chief obstacles to consuming carbonated beverages in space, however, is the wet burp:

Unfortunately for thirsty astronauts, beer is poorly suited to space consumption because of the gas it includes. Without gravity to draw liquids to the bottoms of their stomachs, leaving gases at the top, astronauts tend to produce wet burps.

"That’s one of the reasons why we don’t have carbonated beverages on the space menu," NASA spokesperson William Jeffs told New Scientist.

There are also questions about the effects of alcohol in space:

Jeffs says no research has been done on the effects of alcohol in a microgravity environment. But he says: "There may be differences in alcohol absorption and metabolism in space, which makes one suspect that there may be differences in the effects of alcohol in space."

Clark says medications sometimes have unusual effects in space, which "run the gamut from increased to decreased reactions".

At least one study has been done, however, on where astronauts would get their beer when the closest CircleK is a few million miles away:

 Graduate student Kirsten Sterrett at the University of Colorado in the US wrote a thesis on fermentation in space, with support from US beer behemoth Coors. She sent a miniature brewing kit into orbit aboard a space shuttle several years ago and produced a few sips of beer. She later sampled the space brew, but because of chemicals in and near it from her analysis, it didn’t taste great by the time she tried it.

Ok, so maybe even getting beer in space is still a problem. Still, as extended space voyages become a reality in the future, expect the question of drinks in space to come up — though hopefully not in the form of a wet burp.