If you’re an entrepreneur who loves thinking about space, smoking weed, and thinking about space while smoking weed, there’s a huge market waiting to be tapped into. With talks of space tourism more common than ever, future passengers will be definitely be looking to fulfill their vices on their journey to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Besides booze, the second-most obvious choice here is indulging in the devil’s lettuce.
For myriad reasons, astronauts can’t just blaze one in space — at least not now. The most obvious reason is the fact that lighting up runs the risk of creating a fire on board a spacecraft, which, if you’ve seen literally any sci-fi movie, you know does not end well.
But astronauts also always need to be on their toes because operating a spacecraft is dangerous and extremely complicated. They don’t have the luxury of ripping a bong and watching Planet Earth in their friend’s apartment — although they do get to watch the actual planet Earth from afar.
Earth
This brings up the question of edibles. Even if an astronaut was hankering for a weed brownie, they couldn’t have one for the same reason astronauts can’t eat bread on board the International Space Station (ISS). Crumbs can easily float and get into machinery, potentially damaging it.
The most famous incident analogous to this was when NASA pilot John Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich into space on March 23, 1965. Needless to say, the space agency wasn’t too thrilled about this. For this reason, NASA astronauts on board the ISS now eat tortillas instead of other kinds of bread.
So what other options are there? While there’s definitely no peer-reviewed research on this, by process of elimination, maybe weed gummies or soft candy would work. Gummies don’t the risk of creating crumbs in microgravity. With the right manufacturer, the idea seems at least feasible in theory.
While astronauts aren’t going to be toking up on the ISS any time soon — or ever — tourists on private spacecraft could be getting high on their space vacations sooner than we think. Recently, a company called Orion Span announced its plans to launch a space hotel by 2021, with people occupying it as soon as 2022. Of course, the whole thing might never happen, but if it does, I’m sure its guests will be doing all kinds of stuff that NASA astronauts can’t.
So if you’ve got the time, energy, and passion to create astroweed gummies, here’s a free idea. Go crazy with it.
