> -----Original Message-----
> __________________________
>
> Booze in Space
>
> This week, a million fraternity brothers rushed to join NASA. The reason:
> scientists have discovered beer in space. Well, not beer exactly. But they
> did find alcohol: ethyl alcohol, to be precise, the active ingredient in
> all major alcoholic drinks (antifreeze Jell-O shots, quite obviously, are
> exempted from this category). Three British scientists, Drs. Tom Millar,
> Geoffrey MacDonald and Rolf Habing, discovered this interstellar Everclear
> floating in a gas cloud in the contellation of Aquila (sign of the Eagle,
> the mascot of Anheuser-Busch! Hmmmmm).
>
> Millar and his compatriots have estimated the size of this gas cloud at
> approximately 1,000 times the diameter of our own solar system; there's
> enough alcohol out there, they say, to make 400 trillion trillion pints of
> beer. These guys are British, mind you; if you were to translate this in
> terms of American beer (which the British, with some justification, regard
> as fermented club soda), the amount of potential brewski just about
> doubles. In human terms: remember that double-keg party you threw at the
> end of your Junior year in college (the second Junior year)? Imagine
> throwing that same party, every eight hours, for the next 30 billion
> years. You'd STILL have beer left over. And boy, would YOUR bathroom be a
> mess! Simply put, no one could ever drink 400 trillion trillion pints of
> beer, except maybe Buffalo Bills fans. The sheer volume of all this
> alcohol begs the question of how it managed to get out there in the first
> place. Despite the simplifying effect it has on the human brain, ethyl
> alcohol is a reasonably complex molecule: two carbon atoms, five hydrogen
> atoms, and a hydroxyl radical, all cavorting together in beery
> camaraderie. It's not a compund that is going to spontaneously arise out
> of the cold depths of space. It can lead to speculation: What is this
> cloud?
>
> 1. It's God's beer. After all, He worked for six days creating the
> universe, and on the seventh day, He rested. And after you've had a hard
> week at the office, don't YOU grab a beer? Since man is made in God's
> image, it could be that this cloud is the remaining evidence of the first,
> best Miller Time.
>
> 2. It's Purgatory ("400 trillion trillion bottles of beer on the wall, 400
> trillion trillion bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, three
> hundred ninety-nine septillion, nine hundred ninety-nine sextillion, nine
> hundred ninety-nine quintillion, nine hundred ninety-nine quadrillion,
> nine hundred ninety-nine trillion, nine hundred ninety-nine billion, nine
> hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine
> hundred ninety-nine, bottles of beer on the wall!")
>
> 3. Proof of an undeniably highly advanced but chronically dipsomaniac
> alien society. This particular theory is shaky, however: it's reasonable
> to assume that if the aliens were going to construct a nebula of alcohol,
> they'd also have large clouds of Beer Nuts and pretzels nearby for
> snacking. Advanced spectral analysis has yet to locate them.
>
> The truth of the matter, however, is far more prosaic. In the middle of
> this gas cloud is a young and no doubt quite inebriated star. As the star
> heats up and contracts, sucking the dust and gas of the cloud into a
> smaller area, complex molecules form as a result of greater interaction
> between the elements. Ethyl alcohol forms on small motes of dust in the
> cloud, and then, as the motes angle in closer towards the star and heat
> up, the alcohol is released from the motes in gaseous form. And there you
> have it: an alcohol cloud. Or, as Dave Bowman might say, "My God! It's
> full of booze!"
>
> Enough with the science lesson, you say. Just tell me how to GET there!
> Sorry, Chuckles. You can't get there from here. The gas cloud (which, by
> the way, has the utterly romantic name of "G34.3") is 10,000 light years
> away: 58 quadrillion miles. Even if you hijacked the shuttle and headed
> out with thrusters on full, by the time you got there, the guy in
> Purgatory would be done with his tune. You'd have had time to work up a
> powerful thirst, but you'd also be, in a word, dead. No, the Space Beer
> Cloud will have to wait for the far future, when men can leap through the
> universe at warp speed. One can only imagine what they will do when they
> get there:
>
> Captain Kirk: My....GOD! Sulu! What....is....THAT?
>
> Sulu: It's a free floating cloud of alcohol, sir.
>
> Kirk: And we've just run out of Romulan Ale! Could it be a trap, Bones?
>
> Bones: Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a distiller of fine spirits!
>
> Kirk: We need that booze! But if we fly through that cloud, we'll be too
> drunk to drive!
>
> Spock: May I remind you, Jim, that I am a Vulcan. We are a race of
> designated drivers.
>
> Kirk: Well, all righty, then. Spock, drive us through! Bones and I will be
> out on the hull. With our mouths open! ... To boldly drink what no man has
> drunk before.
>
> _______________________________________
>
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