SPACE.com Columnist Leonard David

Want a Martian-Brewed Beer? Americans Are Up in the Air

bud on mars
Budweiser is launching barley seeds into space to see if it's possible to make beer on Mars. (Image credit: Budweiser)

Budweiser will send barley seeds into space on a SpaceX rocket Tuesday (Dec. 12) to determine if it's possible to make beer on Mars. Yet a new poll indicates that Americans aren't particularly anxious for a taste of Martian brew.

The barley samples from Anheuser-Busch, the company that brews Budweiser, will fly to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, which will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is set for 11:46 a.m. EST (1646 GMT) and you can watch it live here, courtesy of NASA TV, beginning at 11:15 a.m. EST (1615 GMT).

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds:

  • Just 11 percent of American adults say they are more likely to buy a beer that is brewed on Mars.
  • 33 percent say they're less likely to buy a space beer.
  • 45 percent say the beer's origin would have no impact on their beer-buying decision.
  • Another 11 percent are not sure.

The national survey of 1,000 American adults was conducted on Nov. 26 and 27, according to Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is plus/minus 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

Fieldwork for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

Visit Space.com Tuesday for complete coverage of the SpaceX launch. 

Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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Leonard David
Space Insider Columnist

Leonard David is an award-winning space journalist who has been reporting on space activities for more than 50 years. Currently writing as Space.com's Space Insider Columnist among his other projects, Leonard has authored numerous books on space exploration, Mars missions and more, with his latest being "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" published in 2019 by National Geographic. He also wrote "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet" released in 2016 by National Geographic. Leonard  has served as a correspondent for SpaceNews, Scientific American and Aerospace America for the AIAA. He has received many awards, including the first Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History in 2015 at the AAS Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium. You can find out Leonard's latest project at his website and on Twitter.