▻ Wine in Space
In conversation with Nicolas Gaume
Episode Summary:-
In an exclusive podcast interview, Jane Anson talks to Nicolas Gaume, one of the two founders of Space Cargo Unlimited, about his extraordinary mission: Sending 12 bottles of Bordeaux wine and 320 Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon vines into space for 438 days to live on the International Space Station. The aim was to discover the impact of being in a microgravity environment on both wines and vines. Studying how the vines have reacted, on a cellular level, under these severe biological stresses, the hope is to better understand how to adapt agriculture to the climate of tomorrow. In this episode, they discuss how the idea became a reality, his life as an entrepreneur and how looking at the stars from the dunes in his childhood home in Archachon inspired his love of space. Nicolas discusses that inspiration, and the people involved in making his dream come true.
Jane and he talk about the importance of wine in research, from the experiments of Louis Pasteur to the present day. He notes that gravity is the only parameter of life that has never changed for as long as life on Earth has existed. He talks about how, if the vines come back from space more resilient after stress, they could help winemakers to deal with climate change.
They discuss how the project was developed in partnership with the Institute of Wine and Vine Science (ISVV), the European Space Agency (ESA), The National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) and Mercier nursery, and that bottles of wine were bought from the open market rather than being donated from a château.
The name of the wine is yet to be revealed, but it was important to choose a wine with a well-documented history of ageing and good structure. Nicolas talks about his wish to look next at the process of wine fermentation, as well as his ideas about space tourism, which is about to become a reality. He reveals that the vines that have returned to earth are behaving differently from their twins which were left on Earth. The taste of the wine and the results of the tests on it will be revealed in a future podcast.
““Gravity is the only parameter of life on Earth that has never changed””
Running Order:-
-
0.00 – 13.16
“The journey to space is one of the most exciting ones still”
Nicolas Gaume talks to Jane Anson from the La Co(o)rniche hotel, Pyla-sur-Mer, which he owns with his parents, and tells how he became a Tech Entrepreneur after dropping out of business school, with nine start-ups to his name. He explains about his love of science and science fiction as a child, and how he and his business partner Emmanuel Etcheparre came up with the idea of sending wine aloft while looking at the stars in the Pyrenees. He discusses how the work of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk in developing spacecraft has meant that there were more opportunities out there. He talks about the “twins in space” experiment, when US astronaut Scott Kelly returned from space after a year, and it was found that his genes had evolved in a significant manner from those of his twin brother by being exposed to the absence of gravity. -
13.06 – 25.37
“So this particular condition of gravity started to obsess us”
Nicolas explains that gravity is the only parameter of life that has never changed on earth, for as long as it has existed, over 4.2 billion years. There have been temperature changes, humidity changes, light and dark changes, but gravity has been a constant. He talks about his work with the ISVV and their chief scientific officer Dr. Michael Lebert from the University of Hohenheim, and how if the vines manage to survive back on Earth, they could better face other stressful conditions, like climate change. Nicolas discusses the different agencies they worked with and the many hurdles they had to overcome. He is planning to publish the research, and hopes to continue experimenting with winemaking processes in space, fermentation being one. -
30.17 – 48.32
The glass bottles needed careful handling, and Nicolas tells Jane how they were protected from the temperature and stresses of being sent on a rocket to the space station. He explains why they chose an older vintage of a well-documented Bordeaux wine, and how they bought it so it would not be seen as a PR stunt. He believes that the vines will have a clear application for future hostile environments on Earth. Jane asks him about space tourism, and he mentions another of his companies, Mission Wise, which will prepare people for space, details to be announced later. He is keen to taste the wine (which will be reported on in a future podcast) and explains that there will be many tests made to assess how it has changed. He also reveals that the vines which have returned from space are in flower, and are acting very differently from their twins which were left behind on Earth. Definitely, watch this space...
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