Beer on the Moon? TMC MP's Question in the House

No, says Sisir Adhikari, he wasn't looking forward to good times in the magnificent lunar desolation. The Trinamool MP merely wanted to know whether the Indian government was part of a proposed project to brew beer on the moon.

Eram Agha, Sujit Nath

Updated:March 17, 2017, 3:00 PM IST

Beer on the Moon? TMC MP's Question in the House

Representative image

New Delhi: No, says Sisir Adhikari, he wasn't looking forward to good times in the magnificent lunar desolation. The Trinamool MP merely wanted to know whether the Indian government was part of a proposed project to brew beer on the moon.

Adhikari raised interest levels of many with this question in the Lok Sabha during Question Hour on March 15: “Will the Prime Minister be pleased to state — whether an Indian spacecraft is planning to brew beer on the moon? If so, the details of research plan and viability of yeast test therefore; and the universal rules on moon lander therein?”

The reply from Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office took away the fizz. Singh said there was no such plan by any spacecraft to be made by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Singh clarified that the proposed experiment was reportedly by Team Indus, the privately funded moon mission team. Team Indus spacecraft is proposed to be launched onboard ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) under a commercial launch agreement.

"As understood, the aim of this experiment is to test and observe the survivability of yeast in space and how it performs under Moon’s gravity conditions," Singh added.

Team Indus by the Axiom Research Labs Private Limited, is among the five finalists for the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE competition towards building a spacecraft capable of soft landing and roving on the Moon.

Adhikari tells News18 that his interest in the lunar beer brewing experiment was purely academic.

“I was not personally following the development. I came across an article and put it forward to know facts,” he says.

The Kanthi MP's efforts however went went flat as the experiment was out of the race and the Indian finalist decided on a more arcane “Photosynthesis on Moon by Extremophile Cyanobacteria”. The winner from Italy proposed “Radiation Shield using Bacteria”.

Beer on the moon will have to wait for another day.