Space booze? Why NASA just sent whiskey to the ISS

Monday, August 24, 2015, 12:40 PM - Ever wonder if there's alcohol aboard the International Space Station? As of Monday, there is now.

Japanese capsule Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle arrived at the I.S.S. on a much-needed resupply run with 8,000 pounds of cargo, including the latest batch of experiments. 

Among the payload: Six samples of spirits, sent into space by Japanese whiskey manufacturer Suntory, according to the Associated Press.

Six, incidentally, is the typical number of crew members aboard the orbital space platform, but despite what it looks like, it's not that the astronauts have been sent a shot of booze each for a job well done.

When the mission was first announced earlier this month, Suntory said it wanted to see if whiskey would mellow different aboard the station. It's not just about the zero-gravity, either: Apparently the manufacturers reckon the still environment, with little temperature variation, will make for a better whiskey. Among the samples are a dram that's been aged 21 years, and one which is newly distilled.

Some of the samples will be in space for about a year before being returned to Earth, while others will be there for two, according to the Wall Street Journal. That's a shorter time period than the last time someone sent whiskey to age in space.

The BBC reports a vial of scotch from the Ardbeg Distillery in Scotland spent three years floating around up there, while a similar vial was kept on Earth and observed. The last we heard of the experiment, it made it back to Earth safely for study in September 2014.

SOURCE: Associated Press | Wall Street Journal | BBC