||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NEW SCIENTIST - After allegations that astronauts flew drunk, NASA's
rules on alcohol are under scrutiny. The agency currently doesn't allow
its astronauts to imbibe in orbit, but over the years of crewed space
travel, many astronauts have enjoyed a tipple.
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.
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 US decree that it be dry.
That hasn't stopped some researchers from working on ways to brew and
serve alcohol in space, however.
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.
Beyond the challenge of producing beer in space is the problem of
serving it, says Jonathan Clark, a former flight surgeon and now the
space medicine liaison for the National Space Biomedical Research
Institute in Houston, Texas, US.
Without gravity, bubbles don't rise, so "obviously the foam isn't going
to come to a head", Clark told New Scientist.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12388-beer-in-space-a
-short-but-frothy-history.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NEW SCIENTIST - After allegations that astronauts flew drunk, NASA's
rules on alcohol are under scrutiny. The agency currently doesn't allow
its astronauts to imbibe in orbit, but over the years of crewed space
travel, many astronauts have enjoyed a tipple.
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.
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 US decree that it be dry.
That hasn't stopped some researchers from working on ways to brew and
serve alcohol in space, however.
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.
Beyond the challenge of producing beer in space is the problem of
serving it, says Jonathan Clark, a former flight surgeon and now the
space medicine liaison for the National Space Biomedical Research
Institute in Houston, Texas, US.
Without gravity, bubbles don't rise, so "obviously the foam isn't going
to come to a head", Clark told New Scientist.
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12388-beer-in-space-a
-short-but-frothy-history.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No comments:
Post a Comment