Here’s Your Chance to Drink Beer on the Vomit Comet

It's 2018, so it's about damn time that people be able to drink beer in space, right? Well, you can help humanity get one small step — and one giant sip! — closer to that goal by contributing to the Vostok space-beer campaign, which will launch in April from Saber Astronautics and 4 Pines Brewing Co. https://www.youtube.com/embed/eEsAeY_txHg Oh, and if you do contribute, you'll be entered into a raffle for the chance to drink some space-beer aboard the world-famous vomit comet, and get tipsified in microgravity. IFL Science picked up on the campaign/raffle, which is going to help support the respective space research and beer companies develop a beer and a beer bottle that will be suitable for space.

Cold weather is back, P.J.s are good. BTW, you say you won't drink all the Soyuz vodka, but how about the Vostok Space Beer? pic.twitter.com/8LpktD8hok
— Hermann Lombard (@HermannTLombard) January 15, 2018

The bottle, which is modeled on a fuel tank, will allow space travelers to enjoy their beer without needing to rely on the barbaric straw, or even worse, the squeezy drink pouch. As far as the beer is concerned, it's been developed to be carbonated just enough to give that bubbly beer texture without filling you up with too many unpleasant microgravity burps. See, in microgravity, you don't get bubbles of CO2 rising to the top of the liquid, and then escaping into the surrounding atmosphere; instead, you get the formation of bubbles of CO2 surrounded by liquid, because the less-dense gas doesn't escape from the liquid like it would here on Earth. [caption id="attachment_20061" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]

Glimpse of what happens to a carbonated liquid in space. Image: NASA [/caption] To test the beer and the bottle — which have been tested previously, check out the below video — they'll be taken aboard a reduced-gravity aircraft (a.k.a. the vomit comet), which simulates microgravity. https://www.youtube.com/embed/uUh4w68yNGk If you want to join the testing, and be one of a small handful of people who've had booze in microgravity, you'll have to contribute $90 within 3 days of the IndieGoGo campaign's April 7 launch date. Plus there's apparently a tiny essay (like 50 words) you'll have to write. For folks who just want to drink some beer right here on this big, sexy blue and green ball, try out one of these tasty beer cocktails: https://www.youtube.com/embed/v_NqTlQFMgc See recipe. https://www.youtube.com/embed/QCiiXBYRHCw See recipe.

Images: Saber Astronautics, 4 Pines Brewing Co.