Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Flour and Vogel bomb. Here. In September, a new breakthrough
Speaker 1: in space technology was uncorked, especially designed bottle that will
Speaker 1: make it possible to drink champagne in the microgravity environment
Speaker 1: of space. The bottle contains two chambers, one for the
Speaker 1: champagne and the other for a valve that uses the
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide in the champagne to eject foamy little alcohol spheres,
Speaker 1: which can then be scooped into long stemmed glasses for sipping.
Speaker 1: Once inside the mouth, the spheres turn back huala into
Speaker 1: liquid champagne. This space champagne, as the Agency France Press reported,
Speaker 1: is envisioned as an amenity for space horsts, who someday
Speaker 1: may be taking pleasure trips with private space flight operators.
Speaker 1: If future recreational astronauts do get the chance to savor
Speaker 1: some of the bubbly, it won't be the first time
Speaker 1: that alcohol has been consumed in space. The practice goes
Speaker 1: back to the early days of the Soviet space program,
Speaker 1: when the U S sr S doctors reportedly sent cosmonauts
Speaker 1: into orbit with rations of cognac. One former cosmonaut told
Speaker 1: NBC News. We used it to stimulate our immune system
Speaker 1: and on the whole to keep our organisms in tone.
Speaker 1: Later on, cosmonauts were given a liquor containing jin sing,
Speaker 1: a root that's a traditional herbal remedy for improving energy
Speaker 1: and concentration. NASA, in contrast, generally has prohibited astronauts from
Speaker 1: drinking not just in space, but also within sixteen hours
Speaker 1: of a space launch, but the agency has wavered from
Speaker 1: its teetotaling stance at times. There reportedly was a plan,
Speaker 1: for example, to allow the Apollo eight crew to drink
Speaker 1: a small ration of brandy to go with their Christmas
Speaker 1: meal of dehydrated bacon cubes and turkey gravy stuffing, but
Speaker 1: Commander Frank Borman decided that they should forego the alcohol.
Speaker 1: On the Apollo eleven trip to the Moon in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, astronaut Buzz Aldrin did open a small plastic
Speaker 1: container of wine. It was almost certainly the first food
Speaker 1: or drink consumed during the trip, but it was so
Speaker 1: that he, a Presbyterian Church elder, could take communion. According
Speaker 1: to NBC News, as former NASA food developers Charles T.
Speaker 1: Borland and Gregory L. Vatt detail in their book The
Speaker 1: Astronauts Cookbook, Tails, Recipes, and more. NASA considered providing astronauts
Speaker 1: on the sky Lab mission in the nineteen seventies with
Speaker 1: sherry packaged inflexible plastic pouches was built in drinking tubes,
Speaker 1: but the idea was mixed for fear of negative publicity
Speaker 1: and because apparently the beverage, although perfectly palatable on the ground,
Speaker 1: filled the cabin with an intensely nauseating smell on a
Speaker 1: test flight that approximated low gravity with free fall. And
Speaker 1: NASA report titled Living Aloft Human Requirements for Extended Space
Speaker 1: Flight contemplated the pros and cons of drinking on space
Speaker 1: flights and in future settlements on the Moon or other planets.
Speaker 1: It noted it is unlikely that alcohol as a social
Speaker 1: beverage will find its way into space, at least until
Speaker 1: relatively large and stable settlements are established. Alcohol as a
Speaker 1: recreational drug may be keenly missed by space travelers, since
Speaker 1: there is evidence that alcohol plays an important social role
Speaker 1: in exotic environments. Generally, though, today's space travelers have to
Speaker 1: wait until they get back to Earth before they have
Speaker 1: a drink because of alcohol's chemical volatility. That is, its
Speaker 1: tendency to vaporize, astronauts aren't allowed to have it on
Speaker 1: the International Space Station. We spoke via email with Daniel G. Huo,
Speaker 1: a spokesman at NASA's Johnson's Space Center. He said that
Speaker 1: this ban is due to quote the negative effects that
Speaker 1: alcohol can have on the water recovery system, which draws
Speaker 1: in water from a number of sources, including cabin condensation.
Speaker 1: The bed applies not just to beverages, but to any
Speaker 1: sort of product containing alcohol, such as aftershave or mouthwash.
Speaker 1: There's another tricky issue about drinking in space. Not much
Speaker 1: is known about the effect of alcohol consumption on the
Speaker 1: human body in the space environment, which already is no
Speaker 1: to alter everything from the immune system to hand eye coordination.
Speaker 1: No official studies have been done, so we really don't
Speaker 1: know whether the space environment would intensify the intoxicating effect
Speaker 1: of alcohol, or how an orbital hangover would compare to
Speaker 1: one that results from a bender on Earth. While we
Speaker 1: don't have much science on alcohol and space, for what
Speaker 1: it's worth, there has been research on the effects of
Speaker 1: alcohol consumption at high altitudes on Earth. In study, for example,
Speaker 1: some male subjects drink a quantity of one hundred proof
Speaker 1: vodka adjusted to their weight. For a one pound man
Speaker 1: that's about seventy kilos, it was about four shots, and
Speaker 1: then they spent the day in a simulated twelve thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred foot elevation environment that's about thirty eight hundreds.
Speaker 1: They were then compared to other subjects who didn't drink
Speaker 1: and or who stayed at sea level. The drinkers experienced
Speaker 1: impaired performance on a battery of tasks, with older subjects
Speaker 1: performing worse than younger ones, but there wasn't a significant
Speaker 1: difference between drinkers at high altitudes and those who stayed
Speaker 1: on the ground. Although not much alcohol has been consumed
Speaker 1: in space, researchers are studying the creation of it on
Speaker 1: the I s S. Scotch maker Art Begs set samples
Speaker 1: of unaged booze and wood up to study how whiskey
Speaker 1: might age differently in space, and Budweiser sent along batches
Speaker 1: of barley seeds in a scientific effort to understand the
Speaker 1: effects of microgravity on beer ingredients. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Patrick J. Keiger and produced by Tyler Clang. To
Speaker 1: learn more about the history and science of space, food
Speaker 1: and beverages, check out the episode of my other podcast
Speaker 1: Saver called ground Control to Major nom brain. Stuff is
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