Although astronauts may be used to drinking soft drinks on Earth, it’s something they have to give up when they’re off planet due to security concerns. Fizzy drinks are prohibited on missions in space.
What exactly happens when you take a carbonated beverage into space that makes it unsafe for astronauts to consume? As the report published on the website of slashgearin carbonated drinks, the gas that forms the bubbles in soft drinks is carbon dioxide.
For a soft drink to be a soft drink, these bubbles must be able to rise to the top of the drink to release that CO2. For this to work, the force of gravity is needed to pull the bubbles out of the heavier liquid.
As NASA explains, in space, the bubbles are randomly dispersed throughout the soda, which is likely to turn into foam.
Space also affects how soda is digested
Usually when we drink soda, the carbon dioxide leaves the body in the form of a burp and we don’t take in much of the gas as it escapes as described above. Nevertheless, if an astronaut were to drink soda in space, they would be taking in a lot more CO2 because they can’t escape the liquid as easily.
The above can cause much more burping, which can be difficult in space. When space burps are generated, they usually there is some liquid that accompanies themsince liquids and gases have a harder time separating in space.
Interestingly, in 1985, Coca-Cola and Pepsi created a special “space-proof” can that would allow the soda to stay bubbly while astronauts drank it.. Both companies used plastic bags filled with carbon dioxide to expel the soda from the cans while keeping them carbonated.
Four cans were sent into space on the space shuttle Challenger, but the method did not stop the problem of digestion with a fizzy drink in space. They were more of a novelty publicity stunt than anything else.