Space beer brews a happy hour for Japanese astronauts
Having spent an ungodly amount of money and resources in trying to train astronauts to survive in space, you definitely don’t want them getting drunk and spacewalk happy. But apparently over in Japan, they believe that astronauts hovering hundreds of miles above the earth’s atmosphere deserve the right to booze themselves out as much as citizens down on earth, so we weren't exactly surprised when a Japanese brewery Sapporo Holdings announced that it would use the third generation of barley grains stored at the International Space Station for over five months in 2006 to create what it calls "Space Beer". Even though scientist have found no genetic difference between space barley and barley that never left the earth’s surface, the brewery hopes that the space-traveling grains might make their venture quite brew-worthy given their unique, well-traveled charm! The company has said that it has enough grain to produce over 100 bottles of beer which will be made in collaboration with Okayama University biologist Manabu Sugimoto who has been a part of the Russian space projects trying to grow edible plants in space. Since Japan already has sent a lot of noodles in orbit, it only makes sense to let the boys and girls up there have a little drink with their meals!
Source: Yahoo
