Beer in Space

Bubbly, frothing and ticklish - soft drinks and beer promise a welcome taste of home to faraway space travellers.

People can endure many discomforts in exchange for the thrill of living in space. The nausea of space sickness, fitful sleep without the familiar pressure of a bed, tasteless meals eaten from plastic bags - it's all fine as long as the novelty of being in space lasts.

But after a while, the blush of excitement inevitably fades, and astronauts will begin to long for the comforts of home. For example, the nose-tickling bubbles of a refreshing soft drink or a frothy beer after work - these simple pleasures that we take for granted on Earth could do wonders for morale among long-term space travellers.

Of all the carbonated beverages people enjoy drinking today, beer is the oldest and most familiar. Beer has likely been a part of society since human civilization first arose. Historians believe that the ancient Mesopotamian's and Sumerians were brewing beer as early as 10,000 BC. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese brewed beer, as did pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas.

For the tradition of beer and its fizzy cousins to continue as people begin settling space, a few questions must first be answered.

Will fermentation work the same in weightlessness? What happens to carbonation when there's no buoyancy to bring the bubbles to the top? Can space beer form a proper head? Scientists who study the physics of gas-liquid mixtures would love to know!

Two separate space shuttle experiments tackled these questions. Both were engineered and mediated by BioServe Space Technologies, a NASA-sponsored Commercial Space Centre at the University of Colorado at Boulder. NASA's Space Product Development (SPD) program encourages the commercialisation of space by industry through 17 such CSCs.