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Aussie Brewery Creates Space Beer
astroengine writes "An Australian brewing company has created the world's first beer that can be consumed in space. 4-Pines Brewing Company teamed up with Saber Astronautics Australia, tirelessly testing different brews on zero-G flights last year. They have now finalized the winning formula, calling the beer 'Vostok' — after the spacecraft flown by Yuri Gagarin in 1961. The beverage is a strong-tasting stout with reduced carbonation to avoid the dreaded microgravity 'wet burp.'"
Makes me proud to be an Australian. Now there are no reasons why we can't colonize space - we can take our slabs of VB with us, all we need is a barbie (that's the device for cooking hunks of dead animals over flames, not the de-sexed doll) that is safe to use in zero gravity.
Crack a tinny, mate.
This is real Nerd news, but there are sometimes I wonder why? Shouldn't we have higher priorities to spend money on? Space elevator, far space travel, populate Mars (coz frankly we are getting too crowded on earth)? But beer in space? Just what we need, some drunk space pilot docking to the space station. This is why I have no hope for the human race. Sure, I could lighten up, but I'm ready for the younger generation to get off my earth lawn!
A beer to be drunk in space: now that is what I call limiting your market ;-)
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
Just like how do you use a Pen in space, Russia came up with a simple answer. A pencil.
I like how readily people accept that story despite how contrived it sounds.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh, cue all the beer snob posts.....
Science is important, and this is research!
Besides, we're not going to have a significant fraction of the human population off the planet in your lifetime, or for centuries. (I don't count it as significant unless it's self-sustaining colonies, not dependent on having Earth around to supply them. Less than that is an important first step, but those kids aren't getting off your our lawns, so we've got to put up with them.) So relax, have yourself a beer.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Right, because frankly what we need is a brewery to finally crack that case, but all of their engineers are locked up in zero-g refreshment projects instead of in medical school where they belong.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
I don't claim to be a chemist, but I don't think Guinness is carbonated. It uses nitrogen to make the little bubbles, and it doesn't make you burp like a regular cabonated beer does. Wouldn't this accomplish the same thing without all the expense of creating and testing new beers in a zero G environment?
Hypothesis: beer consumed in low gravity will cure cancer.
Experimental protocol
1. Make a beer designed for space and get cancer doing it
2. Consume beer in space, curing cancer
3.???
4. PROFIT!!!
Oh sure, invent space beer AFTER the last shuttle has launched. Way to fuck up the order of operations on that one guys!
(tongue firmly in cheek)
Beer (& Whiskey) open the way for civilization!
There was a recent discovery channel program called "How Beer Saved the World" and in Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain wrote
"How solemn and beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never the missionary -- but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history over; you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey -- I mean he arrives after the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin of both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up an old grant that covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance committee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the newspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands turn to and build a church and a jail -- and behold! civilization is established forever in the land. But whiskey, you see, was the van-leader in this beneficent work. It always is. It was like a foreigner -- and excusable in a foreigner -- to be ignorant of this great truth, and wander off into astronomy to borrow a symbol. But if he had been conversant with the facts, he would have said: Westward the Jug of Empire takes its way. "
If you stick to drinking Space beer Hangovers - headaches will be in the past The Sci-Fi-booze makes you healthy and wise Your dick and brain will grow in size If you're bald, it'll make your hair grow If you're not, drink it for fun Your liver wants more and more of it It keeps your stomach strong and fit We love it - a beermaniac Utopia We want it - oktobertest comucopia (Taken from "Space Beer")
I like how, except for Linux, where it is expected of one to go to any lengths to get Linux on their toaster, /. is rather Luddite.
Researcher:"Here's this new development!" /.:"How does it involve Linux?"
R:"It doesn't." /.:"Then it is a waste of time and you could have just used X."
R:"But this was developed to solve problem Y with X in environment Z!" /.:"I can't hear you over my massive Archos listening to oggs out of my painstakingly handcrafted directory structure."
How does it sound "contrived?" I mean, it's kind of an obvious answer, and it's not inconceivable that when we were racing into space, someone set aside a large sum of money to fix a "Space problem" that had already been solved. Think of how much time and money get devoted to solving and preventing "computer" crimes that are really just regular old crimes, except that someone involved used a computer. Think of how much we spent "on terrorism" on things that had nothing to do with terrorism. Wasting money is not a new government behavior, it sounds entirely plausible to me.
...Or maybe you meant that a pen would work just fine in space? Well, many of us don't think about the physics of pens, so it doesn't sound that contrived to us.
It's one of those cases that demonstrates common sense isn't.
With a little thought one realizes that pencils work by depositing particles, that are only barely attached, on the surface they are used on. Lots of lose particles in zero-G with sensitive electronics is just asking for trouble.
How does it sound "contrived?" I mean, it's kind of an obvious answer...
Precisely.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Most stupid thing ever. Astronauts are doomed to drink their own recycled pee since the payload to carry a twelve-pack of beer is too high. So, there is no use for beer in space and the cost to send beer in space is way too high to justify it. However, it is a good marketing campaign idea.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Thank goodness Yahoo Serious wasn't involved. "Young Einstein" was bad enough for the image of Australian beer culture, an aftertaste that lasts a lifetime.
[
Volunteers for testing this new space beverage! The line form immediately behind me. No, I said behind! No!, Behind me! Hey, get back over there!
I remember back in the mid-80's, Pepsi and Coke sent soda into space and the astronauts drank it. I even have one of the replica Pepsi space cans somewhere. I never heard or read anything about them having "wet burp" issues, and soda is far more carbonated than beer. I tried to find info on whether or not bad things happened when the astronauts drank the sodas, but couldn't. Anyone have info on this?
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
"They added choice ingredients to brew a little brew,
But they didn't know the wires were crossed in Chamber Number Two.
A tiny bit of space got folded, things were looking queer --
They turned the spout and then came out the world's first Hyper-Beer."
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Electrically conductive particles, no less.
I'm anticipating the anti-gravity bong. Beer makes me feel crappy enough as it is.
They invented flat beer?
I meant that pencils would seem like an obvious answer to the problem of "how do you write in space," and I could easily see NASA overlooking this.
While I believe Russians did use pencils on occasion I believe Russians have simply been using BIC pens (or their Russian counterpart) for decades. NASA astronauts didn't know that standard pens worked just as well as "Space Pens" until the MIR exchange program when an American Astronaut noticed the practice. I remember seeing an interview with the astronaut that made the "discovery".
I mean, it's kind of an obvious answer, and it's not inconceivable that when we were racing into space, someone set aside a large sum of money to fix a "Space problem" that had already been solved.
It is an obvious answer to some... but a bad one. Pencils in a zero gravity high oxygen electronic dependant sealed environment. Can you really not see any problems with pencils in this kind of environment?
The correct answer to this problem is to drink mead instead of beer. Mead doesn't need to be carbonated at all to provide its vaguely beer-like flavor. Also, while it's brewed like beer (no distillation) it is much higher in alcohol, so you needn't carry as much of it on your launch vehicle.
Plus I've always wanted to know what Space-Berserkers would be like.
-- The reader anything less than completely failing to not misunderstand this sig is cursed.
I meant that pencils would seem like an obvious answer to the problem of "how do you write in space," and I could easily see NASA overlooking this.
I understood that, but the 'obvious answer' bit is so dizzylingly obvious that it doesn't make any sense. You're talking about a select team of dudes working to solve a problem once thought impossible, who are USING PENCILS to solve this problem
It isn't believable because it's a plausible scenario, it's believable because we WANT to believe that it happened. Mistakes made by dudes that are smarter than us really put a bad day at the office into perspective.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I rarely use pencils, and it's even rarer that I write in zero gravity high oxygen electronic dependent sealed environments, so... no.
Not only that, but the very thought of all these micro particles floating around in the cabin atmosphere and inevitably also being breathed in makes me cringe. Iron filings anyone?
It isn't believable because it's a plausible scenario, it's believable because we WANT to believe that it happened. Mistakes made by dudes that are smarter than us really put a bad day at the office into perspective.
... no, I'm pretty sure it's believable because "Pencils write in space without gravity while pens don't" sounds plausible.
"'Pens use gravity to get the ink onto paper' you say? I can't remember the last time I tried to write upside down, but I think the pen may not have worked, so I could buy that. Pencils probably work without gravity, that just makes sense. NASA didn't think of it but the Russians did? Well, I don't know anyone working at NASA, so okay, I'll take your word for it."
I really don't think many people accepted that because of reasons like "Ha ha, those overeducated morons at NASA! I dropped out of high school but I could have solved that one!"
With a little thought one realizes that pencils work by depositing particles, that are only barely attached, on the surface they are used on. Lots of lose particles in zero-G with sensitive electronics is just asking for trouble.
I'm not to proud to admit that I never would have thought of that. The whole "graphite stuck to paper thing" was not something I would have thought about.
I really don't think many people accepted that because of reasons like "Ha ha, those overeducated morons at NASA! I dropped out of high school but I could have solved that one!"
Really? Think about why this story was dug up today. Was he trying to point out how silly the premise sounds, or was he trying to sound smart?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
And as long as there's no beer in space, that'll continue to be true. So I, for one, welcome this experiment in brewing, and I remind the brewmaster that I might be useful in taste-testing it aboard ISS.
Space beer goes nicely with space cakes. Why not? Then you're _really_ high above the earth.
...on the "dreaded microgravity wet burp"?
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Let's make a rule before the lawyers get involved. Any disputes about damages due to intoxication must be taken outside and settled with fisticuffs!
Remember, friends don't let friends dock drunk.
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx
That reminds me of the story of the constipated mathematician... he worked it out with a pencil.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
In space they can't hear you burp.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Now they can serve some at the space bar.
In-flight testing for this beer must have been quite a thing I guess :)
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
"Job includes high altitude flights and drinking beer in free fall / a micro-gravity environment"
Only downside is you'd have to drink it in three minutes or so...
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
Realistically. Teleoperation is another admin fiction. Like seamless automation. The stuff gets futzed up. Broken down. Lost. Goes offline. AWOL. Then the field-hand, roadie, lower-decks hand, lower-floor worker, diver, steel monkey, whatever (peon) suits up and goes out, up, in, down, wherever. The more tinsel on the corporate logo, the shinier the end product, the worse it usually is.
So. *Real* food and drink are going to be the norm. And experimenting and consumption is going to be intense and, er, "discreet" (sort of, if you're smart enough to mind yours).
Check out the writing of the golden years. Till today. And "Space Truckers" is still one of my favorites. Along with "Outland", and ... "Ice Pirates". :p
I knew that this had to come up sooner or later. Once the private space industry gets going into full swing then we can all look forward to the obvious TV show to come. (Que the stupid microphone effects) "Red Necks in Space!"