Just days after Budweiser, one of America's leading beer brands, announced its grand ambition to brew and serve beer on Mars, Trinamool Congress MP and former Union minister Sisir Kumar Adhikari asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi about India's plans to brew beer on the moon. In a question directed at Modi in Lok Sabha during question hour, on Wednesday, Adhikari asked, “Will the Prime Minister be pleased to state: (a) whether an Indian spacecraft is planning to brew beer on the moon; (b) if so, the details of research plan and viability of yeast test therefore; and (c) the universal rules on moon lander therein?”
While many of us may have hoped the answer to be a yes, Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office burst the bubble and said that there was no such plan by the government. In his answer, he reportedly said, “No Madam. There is no plan to brew beer on the moon by any spacecraft to be made by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).”
But the question also threw light on the attempts of an Indian startup, TeamIndus, to achieve what no other country has achieved yet—brew beer in space. TeamIndus is run by Bengaluru-based aerospace startup, Axiom Research Labs.
Singh clarified that TeamIndus has proposed an experiment to brew beer on the moon using yeast, in a privately-funded moon mission. TeamIndus is the only Indian team competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE, which includes a chance to go to the moon and bag a $20 million grand prize. The global competition focuses on challenging and inspiring engineers and entrepreneurs to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. To win the competition, a privately-funded team must successfully place a spacecraft on the moon's surface, which should travel at least 500 metres and transmit high-definition video and images back to earth. "The (TeamIndus) spacecraft is proposed to be launched onboard ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) under a commercial launch agreement," Singh added, in his answer to Adhikari. The spacecraft is planned for launch in December 2017.
While, TeamIndus focuses on the Google Lunar XPRIZE, the beer brewing experiment is the brainchild of a team of engineering students from the University of California San Diego (UCSD). They are the finalists in the TeamIndus' Lab2Moon competition. The team, that goes by the name “Team Original Gravity”, is developing the experiment to test the viability of yeast on the moon to brew beer in space.
In a media release published in January 2017, the team elaborated their plan and said that to accomplish the task, it will not brew the unfermented beer on the moon. Instead, all the preparatory work needed before adding yeast would be done in a experimentation vessel on earth. The team will also combine the “fermentation" and "carbonation" phases to eliminate the need of releasing accumulated carbon dioxide gas, which could result in sanitation and safety issues. This way, the team also hopes to prevent the possibility of over-pressurisation, in case the system fails, making it easier to design. The team also revealed that the testing of fermentation and yeast viability will be done via pressure, and not using using density measurements, which use gravity, as done on earth.
TeamIndus launched the Lab2Moon competition to encourage youngsters under the age of 25 to design and build an experiment that could help in building sustainable life on the moon. Team Original Gravity is believed to be one of the strong contenders to win the competition and be that one team whose experiment would join TeamIndus spacecraft to the moon.
In the media statement, TeamIndus mentor to Team Original Gravity Siddhesh Naik said, “The yeast study is among the coolest experiments to be performed on the lunar surface, and I am sure they are one of the top contenders to win the Lab2Moon competition. Original Gravity is one of the most hardworking teams and very dedicated to their project.”
“If UC San Diego’s Team Original Gravity is selected, not only will they be the first to brew beer on the moon, the students believe they’ll be the first to brew beer in a fermentation vessel the size of a soda can,” the team said, in the statement.
