Motherboard

Finally, something besides Sparks to wash down our space ice cream: moon beer. Made with barley grown on the International Space Station, the brew was the result of a five-month mission borne out of a collaboration with scientists from Japan (of course), Russia (no surprise there really) and Sapporo Breweries. They created 100 litres of a 5.5 per cent proof beer, aptly named Space Barley. “There’s really no beer like it because it uses 100 per cent barley. Our top seller is the Black Label brand, using additional ingredients such as rice. This one doesn’t, and is really a special beer,” Junichi Ichikawa, managing directory for strategy at Sapporo Breweries, told the Telegraph. Boris Morukov, a cosmonaut who spent 11 days in space on board the ISS, said: “I think we would try to grow potatoes as food, not for vodka production.”

If you’re not one of the 30 selected as part of Sapporo’s lottery to buy some six-packs (at $19 a bottle), not to worry. Get your space pens out and listen closely.

1. Fly to space on the space shuttle
2. Gain access to the International Space Station’s “greenhouse.”
3. There’s no space bathtub, so you’ll need to take the barley straight into the ISS toilet, if it’s not out of order.
4. Start the long and arduous process of distilling. Have a look out the window and have a chuckle at all those lame earth-bound home-distillers. Do a flip.
5. If anyone has floated up and said something like, “what are you doing here?” just nod at the toilet and do an air toast.
6. Pop 2001 into the space VCR.
7. Get out your straws and do a little na’zdrovie with your comrades.
11. Raid the space fridge and grab the horn for some good ol Mission Control drunk dialing.