As exciting as space travel sounds, it is by no means comfortable. Along with losing other necessities like home cooked meals and privacy; one has to lose carbonated beverages too.
The problem with soda in space is the microgravity. The light bubbles of carbon dioxide are not able to escape to the top of the liquid in microgravity leaving quite an intense amount of gas inside the liquid. Drinking that foamy slurp full of gas could have adverse side effects. The gas will not rise above the liquid both in the container and the human stomach causing the bubbles to go through the astronaut’s digestive system. On Earth, a person can simply burp out this gas which is not possible in microgravity.
Well, even if you did burp in space to release the gas, the burp will be as unpleasant as an acid reflux. It will also result in the expel of some liquid.
Just because it can cause potential problems, does not mean that it wasn’t tested. In 1985, Coca-Cola and Pepsi designed special dispensers for dispensing Coke in microgravity.
According to NASA, the dispensers have not been perfected yet, but we are pretty sure, the astronauts would prefer living without beer and coke rather than going through wet soda burps.
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