Press Release:
EUGENE, Ore.—July 2, 2014—This July,
Ninkasi Brewing Company,
a regional craft brewery located in Eugene, Ore., will continue its
quest to Perpetuate
Better Living anywhere mankind’s journey leads—even to space. With the
first mission in the books for this summer, Ninkasi is proud to announce
NSP, the
Ninkasi Space Program.
In partnership with the
Civilian Space eXploration Team
(CSXT), the first amateur rocketeer group to successfully launch
a rocket to space in 2004, the team will do it again, 10 years later,
and carrying a payload of 16 strains of brewer’s yeast above Earth’s
atmosphere.
“NSP
is a very serendipitous project,” explains Nikos Ridge, CEO and
co-founder of Ninkasi. “I don’t think you could have planned a more
perfect pairing of beer and space
geekery.”
Introduced
through a mutual friend, Ridge met with Bruce Lee, of CSXT, at an
amateur rocket launch competition in 2013 where the idea first came
about.
“As
a result of meeting Nikos, CSXT is pleased to include Ninkasi as a team
member for the launch,” says Bruce Lee, principle and range safety
officer for CSXT. “Launching
brewer’s yeast into space will be an interesting experiment – something
we’ve never done before.”
With almost a year of planning, NSP will finally get off the ground this month. Ninkasi’s lab technician, Dana Garves, and
RapidMade, a Portland, Ore. company specializing in 3D printing, worked hand-in-hand to design and create a payload
container built specifically to safely carry the 16 yeast strains into space and back to Earth for brewing—the first to do so.
“I
couldn’t contain my excitement when I first heard of NSP,” says Garves.
“We spent hours researching, developing and testing what we think will
ensure that the yeast
travels safely and returns to us healthy enough to brew with.”
After
the launch, CSXT will retrieve the payload and immediately hand off the
yeast samples to Garves who will analyze the yeast on-site with a
microscope used in conjunction
with her smartphone.
“Since
we’ll be off-the-grid for the launch, I had to figure out a way to
examine the samples remotely,” explains Garves. On-site, Garves will be
testing for the viability
of the yeast, analyzing the number of dead and live yeast cells.
If
successful, the NSP team will return to the brewery with healthy yeast,
ready to make its way into a very special beer for craft beer and space
aficionados alike.
“Obviously,
the fact that we’ve never launched yeast into space presents many
challenges in itself even with months of planning,” says Ridge. “While
we have confidence
in our partners and the process, this is uncharted territory on several
fronts and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds on launch day.”
