# Has anyone ever gotten drunk in space? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 30, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542 "2017-04-30T00:25:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/1 "2017-04-30T00:25:53Z")
I’m reading through the excellent webcomic Questionable Content (again), and they have a brief storyline that takes place on a space station. At a birthday party, several people get drunk. Has anyone ever gotten drunk in outer space? And how does the human body react differently? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/2 "2017-04-30T01:14:44Z")
People have consumed alcohol in space. Mainly the Russians, who issued Cognac aboard Mir. NASA had Buzz Aldrin’s Communion on the Moon, and planned Sherry for the menu aboard Skylab, but dropped it when there was a public backlash, and instituted a no alcohol rule. Whether anybody has gotten plastered I don’t know. If so, it would probably be a Russian. > **[A surprising amount of booze has flown into space](https://www.businessinsider.com/alcohol-that-has-flown-in-space-2016-1)** > > Even though NASA doesn't allow its astronauts to drink. Maybe somebody’s swiped a swig out of some of the science experiments. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/3 "2017-04-30T01:22:55Z")
As noted in the link, carbonation is a problem for consumption (they don’t allow carbonated soft drinks, either), so beer is out. I wonder about champagne - is the bubbly too bubbly? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/4 "2017-04-30T01:23:43Z")
Beer would be inadvisable, as the carbonation wouldn’t rise to the top of your stomach… if you drink carbonated beverages in space, you have to control your reflex to burp or you’re likely to throw up. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/5 "2017-04-30T02:28:30Z")
[Buzz Aldrin partook of communion wine on the moon.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/13/buzz-aldrin-communion-moon) ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/6 "2017-04-30T02:52:18Z")
Gizmodo had an interview with former astronaut Mike Massimino: [We Chatted With an Astronaut About Showering, Farting, and Boning in Space](http://gizmodo.com/we-chatted-with-an-astronaut-about-showering-farting-1794538749) > [@](#): > > RFM: Do people drink in space? > > MM: If you’re going to be responsive to whatever is going on, even anti-nausea medication can affect your performance, so you want to be careful with those. You want to be alert is the idea, just like you would want someone who’s driving to be alert. It’s more of a safety issue. If you have a bunch of drunk people and an emergency, then what? > > But if a person is there like a passenger on an airplane I think it might be okay. Maybe you can have a champagne toast when you get to orbit. On an airplane you can have a drink of champagne or beer or wine if you’re over 21. On a spaceship I think it would depend whose job it is. Maybe you can have a sip of champagne to make it more memorable but you don’t want to be unconscious up there. You can do that in your own room. It’s so cool flying in space you won’t want to miss out on anything. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/7 "2017-04-30T07:39:06Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > [Buzz Aldrin partook of communion wine on the moon.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/13/buzz-aldrin-communion-moon) Yep. **yabob** had that in the second post. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2017, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/8 "2017-04-30T08:17:43Z")
As has been mentioned the [Russians have sent alcoholic beverages](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/alcohol-space-da-f6C10403671) to their missions regularly. I don’t know about the Russian areas of the ISS, but MIR and the earlier Salyut stations certainly did have alcohol. Hell, considering the psychological problems the Russians had in the early long-term missions, I would not be surprised if they wanted to keep them buzzed. They were pretty worried about the effects of sending a woman up, so they enforced a “jovial” attitude during Svetlana Savitskaya’s flight. NASA has used [alcohol for experiments though](https://www.inverse.com/article/14375-alcohol-in-space-a-brief-history-of-giving-zero-fucks-in-zero-gravity). ---
**Author:** ![Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pilgrim_Shadow)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2017, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/9 "2017-05-06T05:55:52Z")
Alcohol does things to people. For one thing, it makes you pee like crazy, and that alone is complicated in space. I’d hate for an astronaut to be listening to Jerry Garcia all night and piss his space suit. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2017, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-gotten-drunk-in-space/785542/10 "2017-05-07T01:40:13Z")
[![](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/257922main_ast-003-175_full.jpg) ](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/257922main_ast-003-175_full.jpg)