An Australian beer company has tapped into the growing space tourism market with the invention of the world's first beer bottle designed for zero gravity.
Vostok, which is a joint venture between Sydney-based brewery 4 Pines Brewing Company and space engineering company Saber Astronautics, has unveiled the design concept of the world’s first bottle that will allow space visitors the chance to drink beer on another planet.
4 Pines co-founder Jaron Mitchell says more consumers have booked recreational space flights than there have been astronauts in space over the past 57 years.
"Space travellers are going to want to enjoy certain creature comforts, like good beer, while undertaking their suborbital experience,” he says.
The Vostok Space Beer bottle will feature modified technology using the same principles as fuel tanks to defy the challenges of drinking in zero gravity.
Saber Astronautics CEO Jason Held says any liquid is difficult to drink in space without resorting to using a straw or a squeezy tube.
The bottle incorporates a special insert that uses surface tension to wick the beer from the bottom of the bottle to the mouthpiece so users can drink normally.
The bottle’s look was designed by Australian industrial designer Angelina Kwan and inspired by the ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and the sensation of floating in space.
“The design embraces the unique surface qualities of the moon and uses materials and finishes associated with space. Yet it still has the look and feel of a normal beer. We want future space travellers to have both the taste and feel of home with this bottle in their hand while floating above the Earth and travelling at 8,000 metres per second,” Held says.
The next challenge involves making a bottle that fits the hand.
The Vostok Space Beer bottle has been through several rounds of industrial design and microgravity test runs.
The bottle prototypes are now the in the final stages, which will include one last test flight at zero gravity (32,000 feet above the earth) on board a ZERO-G flight. This next phase of testing, development and manufacture of the world’s first batch of space beers available to the public is estimated to cost US$1 million.
To help fund the research, Vostok is launching an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign on 7 April.
