Some Astronauts Smuggle Alcohol into Space

Imagine this scenario: you're an astronaut heading to the International Space Station for a trip that could last months or up to a year. At times it will be stressful and at the end of the day, you'd love to relax the way you usually do, with a drink in your hand. As you may know, alcohol is banned on board the ISS (unless used for scientific experiments), but that doesn't mean that nobody aboard the ISS drinks alcohol. In fact, astronauts routinely smuggle alcohol onto the ISS. 

According to a new book about the history of alcohol in space, astronauts have a long history of smuggling alcohol into space. NASA is strict about the no alcohol rule, but in the 80s astronauts from the Soviet Union were actually prescribed cognac on the Russian space station, Mir. Cognac was believed back then to help the immune system, and I have no doubt it helped boost the astronauts' morale too. 

However, things have changed since then. While the Russian space agency Roscosmos tends to turn a blind eye toward astronauts bringing alcohol aboard spacecrafts (we know how the Russians love their alcohol), astronauts from NASA have had to get creative about it. 

According to the book Alcohol in Space, astronauts have gotten alcohol aboard in a number of imaginative ways: by storing it inside a hollowed out book, filling up plastic food containers with alcohol and labelling it as juice, and even going on diets before launching so they can smuggle a bottle inside their space suits and still meet the weight requirements (we admit, that one is extreme). 

While the astronauts who have smuggled alcohol into space could dream up some legitimate excuse for experimenting with how alcohol works in space (or what a space hangover is like), we're pretty sure that they all smuggle booze into space for one reason: whether you're on Earth, Mars, or somewhere in between, humans love to have a good time and get drunk. And we can't blame astronauts for being human.