Our future colonies on Mars might want to brew their own refreshing, American-style lager. To make this daring dream happen and offer prospective settlers on the Red Planet a few comforts of home, Budweiser is taking steps to figure out how we could brew beer on Mars.
The famous beer brand is sending its barley seeds to the International Space Station (ISS) to be studied in a microgravity environment, the beer-maker touted.
Budweiser aims to become the first beer brewed on Mars, as beer-maker Anheuser-Busch announced earlier this year, when it hosted the “Bud on Mars” panel discussion on March 11 in Austin, Texas.
Now, Budweiser is reaffirming this intention and says it “is upholding its commitment” to bring fresh beer to the Red Planet. The acclaimed beer brand is adamant on being there when our Mars colonists brew their first batch of beer, and so the company is shipping 20 Budweiser barley seeds to the ISS this December via SpaceX’s upcoming cargo supply mission .
For this purpose, Budweiser is joining forces with the Center for Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the ISS U.S. National Laboratory, and Space Tango, a payload development company that operates two commercial research facilities within the National Laboratory.
“Budweiser is always pushing the boundaries of innovation and we are inspired by the collective American Dream to get to Mars.”
Budweiser’s Space-Bound Barley Seeds to Advance First ‘Bud on Mars’ https://t.co/zr4uRpbVuL pic.twitter.com/sjnEhCDCVL
— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) November 22, 2017
SpaceX’s mission is scheduled to launch on December 4 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida, and will carry one of Budweiser’s core ingredients to be studied in two one-of-a-kind experiments in space.
The barley experiments on the ISS hope to uncover how the beer ingredient reacts “in a unique microgravity environment.” The first experiment is focused on investigating the effects of microgravity exposure on barley seeds, whereas the second study means to find out how barley seeds germinate in space.
“We are excited to begin our research to brew beer for the Red Planet,” Ricardo Marques, Budweiser’s vice president, remarked in a press release by Anheuser-Busch.
Once the Budweiser barley seeds are safely aboard the ISS, they will remain in orbit for up to a month. After this period, the seeds will be sent back home to be analyzed by Budweiser’s innovation team.
According to Anheuser-Busch, the space experiments with Budweiser barley seeds will do more than set “the foundation and blueprint for Budweiser’s next move” in the future of beer brewing.
Aside from providing important data on how we could brew beer on Mars, the Budweiser ISS studies could also benefit the agricultural community on Earth, says the beer-maker. The two experiments could yield important information on barley production, the company points out.
[Featured Image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]