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Astronauts Sent Whiskey, But Even Without Gravity They Can't Raise A Glass

cupper

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Shame. Damned shame. Be interesting to find out the results though. :nod:

Astronauts Sent Whiskey, But Even Without Gravity They Can't Raise A Glass

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/24/434344391/astronauts-sent-whiskey-but-even-without-gravity-they-cant-raise-a-glass

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station received a shipment that included whiskey on Monday but they won't be allowed even a taste test.

Japan sent up a cargo ship with nearly 10,000 pounds of much needed supplies. Among the goods was whiskey and other alcoholic beverages made by a Japanese company.

See the video of the shipment arriving (Reuters has edited a shorter version):  https://youtu.be/nBsYpLMeP1E


As the Associated Press reports:

"The station's big robotic arm — operated by Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui — grabbed onto the supply craft launched Wednesday by his homeland. Flight controllers helped anchor it down."
The reason behind Tokyo's Suntory Global Innovation Center sending their products up into orbit is to see if spirits "mellow" the same way in space as it does back on Earth.

Unfortunately for the astronauts though, they won't be able to celebrate the arrival of their stash with a toast.

According to the website Space.com:

"[The] astronauts will not crack open a bottle to celebrate the freighter's arrival; the liquor is flying for purely scientific purposes. Suntory plans to conduct future experiments to see how the "mellowness" of spirits is affected by microgravity and a lack of convection (the flow of heat through a liquid or gas)."
The liquor samples will stay on the Space Station for a year or two. When they return to earth, they'll be compared to samples that stayed on earth, to see if they have mellowed.

So the spacemen will have to figure out another way to recreate this popular ode to throwing back the hard stuff.
 
They're now beginning to grow edible crops in space. Inevitably someone - probably the Russians - will figure out a way to make a zero-G still.
 
Leave it to Japanese industrialization to screw with the alchemy of that wonderful elixir (though I don't necessarily include Suntory products in that category).  Is this a legitimate experiment or merely a public relations exercise wrapped in pseudo-research.  Maybe something is lost in translation from Japanese thought to English language but "Elucidating the Mechanism Mellowing Alcoholic Beverage" does not exactly roll off the tongue nor entice one to taste the beverage.  However there was a Suntory astronaut before this latest venture into space.

The art of whisky making should best be left to Scotsmen.  Arrggh, is nothing sacred!
 
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