After allegations that astronauts flew drunk, NASA鈥檚 rules on alcohol are under scrutiny. The agency currently doesn鈥檛 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鈥檚 feeble gravity, he later wrote, the wine swirled like syrup around the cup.
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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.
That hasn鈥檛 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鈥檛 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鈥檛 rise, so 鈥渙bviously the foam isn鈥檛 going to come to a head鈥�, Clark told 快猫短视频.
The answer, Dutch researchers suggested in 2000, is to store beer in a flexible membrane inside a barrel. Air can be pumped between the barrel and the membrane, forcing the beer out of a tap. Astronauts could then use straws to suck up blobs of beer (see Beer balls).
Wet burps
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.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the reasons why we don鈥檛 have carbonated beverages on the space menu,鈥� NASA spokesperson William Jeffs told 快猫短视频.
Jeffs says no research has been done on the effects of alcohol in a microgravity environment. But he says: 鈥淭here 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.鈥�
Clark says medications sometimes have unusual effects in space, which 鈥渞un the gamut from increased to decreased reactions鈥�.
So, should astronauts be allowed to drink in space? 鈥淚t depends on the length of the mission and any cultural norms,鈥� says Jay Buckey, a former astronaut who studies space physiology at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, US.
鈥淢ine was a very short mission,鈥� says Buckey, who spent 16 days aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1998. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 see any need for it.鈥�
Alcohol 鈥� Learn more in our comprehensive special report.
