> Date: Tue, 1 Aug 95 12:14:53 PDT
> From: thorne (Thorne Lay)
> To: seismology
> 
> 
>    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 L.A. Raiders 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,
> 399,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 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 intereaction
> 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. >>