Can you make beer in space?
While most people enjoy a pint of cold beer made here on Earth, researchers are trying to make space beer in space. For science, of course.
Researchers at the University of Florida have mimicked the environment of space to ferment beer here on Earth in a lab.
The goal is to see how yeast reacts to microgravity and if beers brew faster without Earthly constraints.
The study's author, Andrew MacIntosh, a University of Florida associate professor of food science, said this experiment could be vital for future yeast plans.
“From a practical point of view, now we can make a fixed bed yeast tube where we can coat the very long tube in yeast cells, pass wort through one end and get beer at the other end,” MacIntosh said. Wort is a liquid made from grain, malt and water that becomes beer once fermented. “There are new possibilities for how we even go about the phenomenon of fermentation. So, my research has always been fermentation. I'm an engineer and a food scientist, and I love studying how this phenomenon works.”
Although yeast can be found in other foods, MacIntosh said beer was the obvious choice for this study.
“We've been brewing for 4000 years now,” MacIntosh said. “We are really good at it, but more importantly from my perspective, we have a good history of we know exactly what to expect if we do this. So, I can run a control, and I know exactly what I should see. And now we do it on zero G, and it's, ‘oh, something is different, let’s find out why.’”
MacIntosh said he is a futurist and that this research may lead to other applications, like making bread on Mars and creating other foods in space.
Should humans even explore space exploration?
Humans have been launching into space for over 60 years. The U.S. sent the first American into space, Alan Sheppard, in 1961. Since then, more than 600 people have left the planet
But should humans be making grand efforts to explore space and its resources when we have problems on our own planet?
That question is explored in Savannah Mandel’s new book Ground Control: An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration.
Mandel’s memoir explores the idea that space is not truly for all and that humans have enough issues on our home planet we need to address.
Mandel said the book notes that “space [exploration] is a conversation that is truly a global one, and yet choices about space are being made by a small group of people, and oftentimes an elite group of people. When we get to the point that conversations about space are being held in a way that engages the public and by the global public, we can consider human space exploration as a viable option. But, we have a lot to do until we can get to that point.”
While there are efforts to study environmental issues like the threat of climate change and plans to live in space or on another planet, Mandel said these solutions do not seem like the right choice.
“Rather than maintain or put as much effort as possible into maintaining planet, I feel like there's this effort to let go of the planet that we've harmed and just find a new one without facing the consequences of our actions,” Mandel said. “I am concerned that not everyone will be able to go to planet B.”
While this topic is controversial, Mandel said she is hopeful that people read her book to showcase her argument, but also to showcase her development as a space anthropologist and why she came to her conclusion about space exploration.
“I wanted to help all of us to engage with scientific and technological questions from new angles as we face them,” Mandel said. “No matter what our opinion is like, I want us to make sure we're looking at these large-scale scientific projects from all possible perspectives to ensure that we are going into them with the clearest head possible.”
