Whiskey delivered to the ISS for scientific purposes

Original author: Staff Writers
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Photo: Australian Bartender

Six types of whiskey were sent to the ISS, but astronauts and astronauts working at the station would not get anything from it - it will be used exclusively for conducting scientific experiments.

On Monday, a robotic arm-manipulator pulled an HTV-5 spaceship with 4.5 tons of cargo to the station, including alcohol. It was provided by Suntory.

Whiskey delivery is part of a research project led by Suntory that plans to find out how outer space affects alcohol maturation. The experiments will be conducted throughout the year and their results will be transmitted back to Earth for analysis.

“Our company hypothesized that the formation of a high-dimensional molecular structure, consisting of water, ethanol and other components in alcoholic beverages, promotes maturation, and we conducted joint research in this area,” said a representative of Suntory.

Since the whiskey will be on the space station, the control samples will remain on Earth and they will also undergo this study for the same period of time.

NASA representative Dan Huot emphasized that all the experiments conducted at the ISS were agreed with all project participants and noted that this was not the first experiment with alcohol in space.

The Japanese will also conduct another study related to aging: they will study the long-term effects on living things. For this, 12 mice were delivered to the station.

Along with alcohol and rodents, the spacecraft delivered tons of food and special equipment for the six astronauts who are now on the ISS.

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