REAL LIFE NEWS: CHAMPAGNE… IN… SPAAAAACE!
by Hazed
French champagne producer Mumm has commissioned a special bottle that will allow the fizzy wine to be poured in micro-gravity, meaning future space tourists will be able to sip champagne in orbit.
The bottle has two chambers, and the wine sits in the top part of the bottle. A finger-controlled valve uses the champagne’s own carbon dioxide to release small amounts as foam, which can then be scooped out of the air using long-stemmed glasses.
This sounds complicated but the alternative is to drink from a sealed container using a straw, which is decidedly un-classy.
The special bottle has been tested on the Airbus Zero-G plane, which makes a series of steep climbs before plunging down to created intervals of weightlessness lasting 20 seconds. Journalists from several countries were onboard to try the zero-g champers.
Incidentally, drinking in space gets you drunk in exactly the same way as it does on the ground – a study run back in 1985 by the US Federal Aviation Administration concluded there was no perceivable difference between the effect of alcohol on performance at ground level and in space. But it’s probably not a good idea to drink if you’re the one flying the spaceship…
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45494204
