Alcohol is prohibited in space. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The astronauts themselves have confessed that they secretly introduce cognac, brandy and other drinks. And that has more than one danger.
For better or worse, the alcohol It is a drink intimately linked to the human being. It is not healthy and we know what happens when we take more than necessary. But it is still consumed universally.
Astronauts are prohibited from drinking alcohol in spacefor different reasons: image, safety, health and because… alcoholic beverages change when they are not subject to gravity.
But that doesn’t mean alcohol isn’t “sneaking” around the International Space Station, when the cameras aren’t looking. It is easy to empathize with people who they spend months drinking their own urine, and that of their peers…
As the website explains Slah Gear, alcohol has been prohibited since the beginning of the space race, by all agencies. There was one exception in 1969, when astronaut Buzz Aldrin was allowed to drink Communion wine on the first trip to the Moon.
But we know what happens when some authority prohibits alcohol: that ends up circulating the same, “smuggled”.
In the book Alcohol in Space, written by Chris Careberry, which you can find on amazonseveral American astronauts they confess have seen the Russian astronauts “stuff cognac bottles into hollow books, into containers labeled as juices, and have even gone on strict diets so they can fit bottles into their space suits and still meet weight requirements“.
And on the North American side, it’s not much different. Astronaut Clayton Anderson acknowledges that “NASA will tell you that there is no alcohol on board the ISS. As a person who lived there for five months, I will tell you that this is false.“.
Why is alcohol prohibited on the International Space Station or on space flights? There are obvious reasons. First, for a matter of image. Astronauts represent humanity in harsh uncharted environments, and nobody wants to see a drunk astronaut failing a mission or talking nonsense on TV.
But the main reason is obviously safety. The cost of any equipment and tool is multiplied by 10,000 in space, and it would be a disaster if an astronaut with a few cups too many spoiled an equipment, an experiment, a mission, or caused serious damage to the space station or rocket.
In addition there are scientific reasons not to take alcohol into space. Compounds like ethanol are very volatile, and could interact with gases and other elements in the station.
Is sent beer and whiskey in various experiments to the Space Station, and it has been discovered that break down in zero gravity. The bubbles in the beer can’t rise to the surface, creating a kind of foamy mess, and the aging of the whiskey slows down, completely changing its flavor.
Even worse: when astronauts drink drinks with bubbles, due to the absence of gravity the bubbles do not go down to the bottom of the stomach and stay at the top, generating “liquid eruptions”. That’s why it’s not just alcohol that’s banned on the Space Station: so are carbonated drinks.
Neither alcohol nor Coca Cola for the astronauts. The water they drink is their own recycled urine, so for them a fresh orange juice is a feast fit for a king. Surely now you see these brave space heroes with different eyes…
Add Comment