In humankind's ongoing quest to acquire as much useless information as possible, a group of California winemakers has launched a supply of grape juice into space to determine whether it will ferment into wine without the benefit of gravity.
The grape juice, from Lodi's Michael David Winery, was sent to the International Space Station via an unmanned vessel back in February after the company's Jeff Farthing submitted a request to conduct the experiment, he says. "It was a project I had from graduate school," Farthing says. "And it was more of a continuation of looking at the microbial loads, and how they compare in a fermentation of Earth compared to being up in space."
Although results of the test have not yet been returned, Farthing says NASA officials have told him to "expect the unexpected" when the experiment has wrapped up.
Why do we need to know if grape juice ferments in outer space? Do you see most of the work NASA does as important?
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