Barley despatched to area by U of Guelph returns to Earth on technique to being became whisky
Some out of this world whiskey is a step closer to the glasses of connoisseurs.
On its social media accounts, Scottish whiskey distiller Glenlivet announced barley seeds sent to the International Space Station as part of a University of Guelph experiment have returned to Earth, where their resulting crop will be malted and distilled into a special edition whiskey.
Announced last year, the university’s experiment saw the seeds “exposed to zero gravity, cosmic radiation and wild 200-degree temperature swings as the (International Space Station) orbits behind Earth’s shadow and back again into the intense heat of the sun,” according to a post on the U of G’s website at the time.
“This experiment represents the extreme conditions that plant-based biologicals such as seeds would be subjected to if we create self-sustaining life support systems in space,” Dr. Mike Dixon, a professor in the university’s School of Environmental Sciences, adds in the 2021 post.
“Knowing how food sources will fare in such harsh environments is a small but significant incremental step in the long, scientific investigation to supporting human life in space.”
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