If the difference between staying on Earth and leaving for the moon or Mars is that you simply won’t get off-world kombucha, then scientists are working to assuage your fear.
Not only might a number of the microbes that help ferment kombucha survive in harsh conditions outside Earth’s atmosphere, but scientists also speculate the organisms could provide future space-dwellers on Mars or the moon with way over a tasty beverage. These bacteria might help astronauts create the oxygen they should breathe.
“As a result of their ability to provide oxygen and performance as bio-factories, this biotechnology could significantly enhance future space missions and human space exploration efforts,” Nicol Caplin, an astrobiologist on the European Space Agency (ESA), said in a statement.
Related: Scientists Send Kombucha to Space in Seek for Extraterrestrial Life
Kombucha cultures, that are multi-species mélanges of bacteria and yeast, are key to creating the beverage. Add one such culture to room-temperature sweetened tea and, so long as the tea has loads of sugar, microbes inside will eat those nutrients, multiply and ferment the tea.
Kombucha cultures are already known to survive harsh conditions on Earth, partly since the microbes that make them up stick together and form a resilient mat under antagonistic temperatures or radiation. The truth is, when ESA sent some bacteria present in kombucha cultures to ride on the International Space Station’s exterior for 18 months, scientists observed the organisms repairing their DNA even after damage from cosmic radiation.
And space mission planners care about kombucha (beyond it being a tasty beverage) since the associated microbes can generate oxygen. Which means that, if these microbes’ oxygen-making powers might be harnessed in space, astronauts would not must generate the life-sustaining element from one other source.
So, although we have now never intentionally taken microbes to the moon, successive Artemis program missions might take kombucha cultures with them to check the substance’s mettle.
“I hope to see our [kombucha] samples attached to the Lunar Gateway in the long run,” Caplin said, “or perhaps utilized on the surface of the moon and beyond.”