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JAXA Prepares To Try Making Whiskey In Space
schwit1 writes: An experiment to test how whiskey ages in weightlessness is about to begin on ISS: "H-II Transfer Vehicle No. 5, commonly known as "Kounotori5" or HTV5, was launched on Wednesday from JAXA's Tanegashima Space Center carrying alcohol beverages produced by Suntory to the Japanese Experiment Module aboard the International Space Station, where experiments on the "development of mellowness" will be conducted for a period of about one year in Group 1 and for two or more years (undecided) in Group 2." Don't worry, the astronauts on ISS won't be getting drunk. After the test period is complete the samples will then returned to Earth, untasted, where they will then be compared with control samples.
before NASA got into the Moonshine business. Astronaut Jim Bob was quoted as "I'd like to see those damned revenuers catch me here".
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Making tastes, good.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
WHISKEY. IN. SPAAAAAACE!
You know, this novelty troll is actually starting to grow on me. I'm pretty sure there isn't a bot involved as the subject is derived from the article but not directly taken from it and the content of the post changes a bit each time.
So much better than the goatlemongirl posts we used to get...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
grow better weed in space?
Rick B.
Good to know they're not wasting time and money on trivial things that won't benefit the human race in any meaningful way.
Next up: can ants be trained to sort tiny screws in space?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
hail ants
Astronauts Smith and Ivan blurted out "in free fall you have to wrap the neck of the flask, too."
to conduct testing on the effects of alcohol on the human body while weightless!
Well... Can you come up with a better excuse...err.. reason to sample some of this before it leaves orbit?
"A mind reader? That sounds like sci fi." "Honey, we live on a space ship"
I love Scotch Whiskey (or the Japanese Scotch-style whiskey) but the doc says no more alcohol.
Here on Earth we make non-alcoholic drinks by removing the alcohol. Typically this requires
either high heat (ruins the taste) or high pressure (reverse osmosis).
However, while we need high pressure because our atmosphere already has pressure, out in
space they don't need very much pressure at all if they depressurize the low side of the
filter. So they could set up a container with two chambers separated by an RO filter and an
air chamber, put it out in space, and let the vacuum of space draw out the non-alcohol whiskey.
It would be a greater pressure differential than we can do here on earth -- 1 : near zero atmos
vs N : 1 atmos.
That would be a fun thing to taste. I mean test.
E
Was the author drinking, whiskey when they titled this submission
I would think so, given that they are shipping already created whiskey up there to sit in zero G... This is about aging booze in zero-G, not creating it there. Having toured a distillery, I can tell you gravity is a very required component in fractional distillation... And during aging gravity helps move the alcohol inside the barrel, via convection.
The title really had me thinking about how you do fractional distillation when there's really no force separating liquid from vapor. Maybe you could use a laser or concentrated sunlight to heat the outside edge of a floating glob of wort and draw the vapor off with vacuum device... I don't think heating the whole mess to boiling would be very productive.
One interesting thing about getting out of a gravity well is everything we ever did before has to be adjusted for the lack of this pull we have been tied to forever. Maybe new alloys could be formed, or other chemical reactions might produce altered results, all from the lack of having a separating force missing from the process.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
It's valuable technology spinoffs like this zero-g whiskey that justify the taxpayers shelling out over $100B on the ISS.
If it weren't for our robust support of manned space flight, mankind might never get the benefits of zero-g wiskey, and that would be a shame.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...
Was done years ago with real malt whisky
Ardbeg has already been to the ISS and back...
http://www.ardbeg.com/ardbeg/a...
Some varieties of aquavit are aged on a sea voyage to Australia and back again. On a sailing ship that usually meant a trip all the way around the world. A year on the ISS would be lots of trips around the world.
You are all, cows. Cows, say moo. MOOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOO! Moo, cows, moo. Moo say, the cows. YOU, COWS!!
Moocow man meets the Golden Girls
Thank you for being a cow,
Feeding everyone from then to now,
You taste real good, boiled or broiled you're a tasty treat,
And if we held a barby
and cooked you up so carefully,
You would see the biggest burps would come from me,
and then all my guests would say,
Thank you for being a cow.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I was going to post this myself, but you beat me to it!
It is truly amazing how many people in the world do not know the difference between "Whisky" and "Whiskey"! Of course, the US blurs the distinction, as different whiskies distilled here, use different spellings!
For the misinformed among us:
Scotland, Japan, Canada, (Some) US and others use "Whisky".
Ireland, (Most) US, and others use "Whiskey"
Well, for maost everything that we use gravity for, a centrifuge can do the job better. It's just that we have free gravity everywhere on earth, so building centrifuges isn't cost-effective unless gravity just isn't up to the task. In space, well, suddenly centrifuges have a lot more to offer. Which is why the traditional science fiction space station spins.
Where things get interesting is, as you point out, exploring what's possible in freefall.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
we've been testing if whiskey can make you weightless.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I did think about spinning a still... but it would have to maintain a steady temperature so that means spinning it in evenly heated air, or spinning it in a vacuum and putting the heaters on the inside (ok until cleaning time). Also, to get a meaningful amount of product it would be best to have a spinning space station... otherwise you have a giant gyro inside your habitat and that could turn maneuvering suddenly (to avoid space junk for example) into an exciting game of "Oh Crap, we can't go (x) direction unless we stop the 1000 kg still from rotating first... and that action alone is going to move the space station in some manner!" Really you get the same issue with a spinning space station, large gyros do not like to be pushed, unless you do it in an exact manner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
One interesting thing about getting out of a gravity well is everything we ever did before has to be adjusted for the lack of this pull we have been tied to forever. Maybe new alloys could be formed, or other chemical reactions might produce altered results, all from the lack of having a separating force missing from the process.
Interesting thoughts.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Truly, the ISS is the gem of human scientific endeavor in space. Was that actually the most interesting microgravity experiment that anyone could think of to fill that chunk of payload space; or are they trying to land some corporate sponsors?
"Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit"
—An ancient Orion mining song
Janx Spirit - almost exclusively referred to as "That Old Janx Spirit" - is an extremely potent alcoholic beverage, and is used heavily in drinking games that are played in the hyperspace ports that serve the madranite mining belts in the star system of Orion Beta.
The game is not unlike the Earth game called Indian Wrestling, and is played like this:
Two contestants sit at either side of a table, with a glass in front of each of them
Between them would be placed a bottle of Janx Spirit.
Each of the two contestants would then concentrate their will on the bottle and attempt to tip it and pour spirit into the glass of his opponent - who would then have to drink it.
The bottle would then be refilled. The game would be played again. And again.
Once you started to lose you would probably keep losing, because one of the effects of Janx Spirit is to depress telepsychic power. As soon as a predetermined quantity had been consumed, the final loser would have to perform a forfeit, which was usually obscenely biological.
Ford Prefect usually played to lose.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
all those space Dollars finally put to good use.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Sounds like a publicity stunt.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bill Suttons "The Terriffic Centrifrugal Still" which addresses your microgravity distillation questions and soothes your fears about the availability of booze in space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.c...