An Australian micro-brewery has joined forces with a space engineering firm to produce the first beer for consumption in space.

The partners believe the cosmic beer, will become a requirement when the space tourism industry takes off, although perfecting the brew hasn't come without its challenges.

When the space Endeavor blasted off on its final mission, it carried with it six crew and a two billion dollar particle detector for space research.

One thing it wasn't carrying however is beer.

NASA won't allow alcohol in space and probably for good reason, but far away in Sydney, Australia two entrepreneurs are looking ahead to a new era of space travel for tourists, whom they believe will want to sip on a beer as they orbit the earth.

Dr. Jason Held of Australian space engineering firm Saber Astronautics and Jaron Mitchell, who owns the 4 Pines Brewing Company have already created a prototype for the first commercially available space beer. It' called Vostok "4 Pines Stout".

Jaron Mitchell, 4 Pines Beer, said, "It's going to be the first beer that will be specifically designed to be drunk in zero gravity with upcoming space tourism about to kick off."

Mitchell and his partner believe they are ahead of the curve. The Russians, who are known to enjoy the occasional drink, are already taking rich tourists into space and British businessman Richard Branson is building the infrastructure for his own space tourism business. According to Jason Held and Jaron Mitchel, wherever man has ventured, beer has followed.

Jaron Mitchell, 4 Pines Beer, said, "We took all the research from food and non-alcoholic beverages that we had in the past and that was about 50 years or so and we applied it to alcohol because there has never actually been any formal studies for alcohol in space because there has never been any need."

But soon, he says, there will be a need which 4 Pines is well positioned to satisfy.

The pair decided that a full-bodied, flavorsome, stout-style beer would work best to counteract the loss of taste sensation frequently experienced by astronauts in zero gravity.

They even hired a professional space tester to try the beer during a zero-gravity flight over Florida, while recording basic biometric data to track effects of the experiment.

Jason Held says the science is important.

Dr. Jason Held, Saber Astronautics, said, "Your face puffs out a little bit, your tongue swells up a little bit, its not extreme but its kind of like having a bad head cold. Sosystem.scripts.ave a flavor that would be strong enough that would punch through that. And the other side is carbonation, cause in the beer, the bubbles and the liquid they don't separate very well in zero gravity so its kind of a problem in space drinking any type of carbonated beverage. When you drink it the gas doesn't have any where to go so when you want to burp you do what is called a wet burp where the gas and the liquid come out together. Its rather uncomfortable."

But Held says 4 Pines is on the right track with additional experiments planned to establish the effects of alcohol absorption on the human body in zero gravity.

Dr. Jason Held, Saber Astronautics, said, "We know in high-altitude flying, like you go on an aircraft, you know that the body does not metabolize alcohol as quickly as it does here on earth. So you've actually had a couple of cases of alcohol poisoning where people get in an aircraft, drink a lot of beer and they are enjoying themselves and they don't feel like they are drunk and the moment they get back on the ground all that alcohol flushes through your system and you get drunk very, very quickly and we want to see if there are similar effects with micro gravity we haven't learned before."

And then there's all-important issue of the glass. How to persuade the beer to resist zero-gravity and flow the way it does on earth.

For the pair it's another challenge to be met and overcome. They're confident that within two years, space tourism will be viable business, and that 4 Pines stout will take travellers to even greater heights.

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