No dubious shops or run-of-the-mill stalls. Buy alcohol at retail networks who monitor their reputation and carefully select suppliers. Roughly speaking, if there is expired goods on the shelves in a supermarket, then the alcohol there must be chosen with particular pickiness.
When buying alcohol, you should always be given a receipt, and ideally, ask for a passport, even if you don’t look like a schoolboy for a long time.
Price
Very a good thing it's not cheap. If you are offered aged French cognac for 800 rubles, there is something wrong. If you want to buy an expensive one, first look at how much it costs, compare prices on the Internet, do not run after a good price.
It’s not interesting to counterfeit very cheap alcohol from unpromoted brands; it’s more likely that it will be there in the first place Bad quality. So grab some good drinks after checking the authenticity.
Bottle
Branded alcohol is bottled in special bottles with unusual shape, edges on the neck, relief inscriptions. If you want to buy alcohol from a specific well-known brand, try to find the manufacturer’s website and evaluate how the bottle differs from any other.
Pay attention to:
- Cover material. Made of plastic, metal or cork, whether the lid is wrapped or not, smooth or embossed, flat or convex. The lid of good alcohol does not rotate or leak. On the caps of vodka bottles there is a number by which the bottle can be verified for authenticity on the manufacturer’s website.
- Neck shape. Long or short, with or without edges. A bottle with a dispenser is a sign that it was made in a factory and not underground.
- Bottle shape. Pay attention to the curves, shoulders of the bottle, and bottom topography.
- Relief inscriptions and images. On expensive alcohol there are often inscriptions with the name of the drink, symbols of the trading house, and other designations. On fakes, these inscriptions are either not repeated at all, or not all are reproduced, or the place of application is confused.
Excise stamp
The excise stamp is printed on special paper with colored fibers; all numbers and codes on it are clear, clearly visible and readable. The stamp must be applied absolutely evenly.
Organizations that have a license to sell alcohol must check excise stamps. For you and me there is a service of the One social portal alcohol market.
Enter the numbers from the excise stamp and check whether the stamp matches the product. The service operates in test mode, that is, apparently, its data does not always correspond to reality. However, we tested five bottles produced and purchased in different places, and they all passed the test.
Label
The label of quality alcohol is made on good paper, often with embossing or complex elements.
If you are looking for a specific brand, compare the order in which the information on the label should appear. On branded products, all labels repeat the pattern, and product names are accompanied by a registered trademark icon.
It is mandatory to indicate the address of the manufacturer (legal and place of production), composition, and there must be links to regulatory documents.
Bottle contents
This may help if you buy alcohol in a bottle from clear glass and you know what the right drink looks like.
- Cognac, if you turn the bottle upside down, leaves oily streaks on the glass. They are called cognac legs.
- Good whiskey behaves in the same way. We must remember that whiskey is a clear drink, there should be no sediment or flakes.
- Vodka - only clear, without sediment.
But on appearance The drink can only be distinguished as a completely artisanal fake.
Here we are only talking about fakes, but there is also simply low-quality alcohol, for example, wine made from a mixture of alcohol with dyes and flavorings. The only thing that will help here is to read the label with the composition and indicate the GOST standards according to which the alcohol is made. And your feelings. If you open a bottle and something doesn't seem right, don't finish it or check. It's better to lose money than health.
The most effective way to protect yourself from bad alcohol
They can counterfeit everything, even excise stamps. Therefore the most effective method protection against bad alcohol - the choice of place of purchase and alcohol, which you can check on the manufacturer's website.
How to recognize methyl alcohol
No way. Although there are recipes for determining methanol.
Dipping heated copper wire into alcohol, for example. When methanol reacts with copper, it will release formaldehyde and you will notice a pungent odor. Ethanol doesn't behave that way. But ethanol will also smell, although not as disgusting. There is another option with setting the alcohol on fire and revealing the shade of the flame (methanol burns greenish).
These methods work if you are comparing two clean looking alcohol And methanol can be added to alcohol in different proportions, diluted and mixed with dyes, flavors and ethanol.
Symptoms of methyl alcohol poisoning
At first, methanol poisoning is no different from alcohol poisoning: dizziness, nausea, headache. Then warning signs appear:
- Pain throughout the body.
- Loss of vision.
- Dyspnea.
- Cardiopalmus.
What to do to avoid methanol poisoning
- Drink only alcohol from trusted places and only high-quality alcohol.
- Never get so drunk that you miss the first signs of poisoning, that is, until you lose your footing and feel sick.
- If you have symptoms of poisoning, immediately call an ambulance and get to the doctors.
- Before the doctors arrive, provide first aid.
Although regular ethanol helps inhibit industrial alcohol poisoning, do not self-medicate with alcohol.
Head of SpaceX American businessman Elon Musk, speaking in the Mexican city of Guadalajara at the 67th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, presented a project for interplanetary transport system ITS (Interplanetary Transport System), designed for the colonization of Mars. It is assumed that a completely autonomous settlement will be built on the Red Planet. Thanks to ITS, a million people will move to a colony on Mars in half a century.
According to Elon Musk, humanity needs to colonize other worlds to survive. Mars is best suited for this, since the conditions on the planet, although remotely, are still similar to those on Earth. Neighboring Venus is too hot, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, where a colony could also be established, are too far away. The development of these moons, in particular Enceladus, has already next stage colonization solar system.
Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX (produces rockets and spaceships) and Tesla Motors (creates electric cars), and also initiated the Hyperloop project (a hybrid transport system from a vacuum train and maglev). He also took part in the creation of PayPal (dealing with electronic payments) and SolarCity ( solar energy).
Terraforming Mars, that is, creating a climate there as similar as possible to Earth’s, according to Musk, may take several hundred years. This is a matter of the distant future. The businessman believes that in the past the Red Planet had a denser atmosphere and rivers of water flowed. Musk agrees with those scientists who believe it is possible to return Mars to its previous state. Then the planet will become suitable for agriculture without greenhouses and the life of at least primitive microorganisms.
Today, it is estimated that the cost of sending a person to Mars is $10 billion. Musk believes that 10 million is too expensive. And he proposes a program to reduce the cost of flights to the Red Planet. He intends to find money for it from private partners and enthusiasts. The state, apparently, is not helping SpaceX with this. NASA also, despite cooperation with SpaceX under the International space station, approach the project with caution.
Musk proposes to create a manned spacecraft with a capacity of 200 people. A thousand such devices should accumulate in Martian orbit. In total, about ten thousand flights are planned from Earth to Mars. The journey will take no more than 150 days, and the cost of delivering the payload will be 140 thousand dollars per ton.
The ITS concept is based on several key technologies - reusability, in-orbit refueling of ships and the use of Martian fuel. Methane is proposed as a fuel, which can be obtained on Mars from water and carbon dioxide. All rocket engines will remain chemical - ion or nuclear options are not considered. It is planned to install the Raptor engine on the ITS rocket, which has the most great attitude craving for mass. This unit has recently been tested; the promising carrier has 42 engines. Fuel tanks for the Raptor are expected to be made from carbon fiber.
The rocket for the colonization of Mars will be the largest ever created by man: diameter - 12 meters, height - 122 meters (including the head part). The first stage of the ITS launch vehicle is an enlarged first stage of the midsize Falcon 9 rocket. It will require about seven percent of the total first stage fuel to return to Earth after the vehicle is sent into Earth orbit.
With an ITS rocket, as Musk noted, it is possible to deliver cargo to any point on Earth in a maximum of 45 minutes. The diameter of the manned spacecraft, located at the head, will be 17 meters, height - 50 meters. Loading capacity - 450 tons (including fuel). Six engines operate in space, three in the atmosphere. After the ITS presentation, the businessman answered questions from those present in the hall.
From his answers, it became known that SpaceX does not have money to independently finance the ITS project - the company makes money exclusively on NASA orders and commercial satellites. However, the situation may change. If currently, out of five thousand SpaceX employees, about 50 people work on ITS, then over time, when investments in the project grow to $300 million a year, the businessman hopes to increase their number sharply.
To the question of Russian Anastasia about attracting foreign citizens Musk responded to the project as follows: anyone can participate in the ITS program. But for this, in addition to talent, you also need a green card. For comparison, the situation at Tesla is simpler - a quarter of its employees are foreigners.
Musk confirmed his intention to send an unmanned mission on the Dragon V2 spacecraft (with an estimated capacity of up to seven people) to Mars in 2018 using the Falcon Heavy rocket, tests of which are scheduled for the fall of 2016. After that, he plans to send spacecraft to the Red Planet every 26 months: two missions in 2020, at least one in 2022, and likely a manned mission in two years with landing on the planet in 2025. The launches are planned to be carried out on the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle under development, and the launch in 2020 or 2022 will be carried out on an ITS rocket.
SpaceX is going to call the first Mars ship Heart of Gold. Musk admitted: unfortunately, there are no guarantees that the first colonizers will be able to return to Earth. He traditionally compared the journey to Mars with the discovery and settlement of America. Let us add on our own that in Europe such migrations, like the discovery of America that preceded them, were considered by many to be madness. Whether Elon Musk will become the new Christopher Columbus or turn out to be a prudent businessman with a rich imagination - time and his affairs will tell.
For New magazine Space talked about the first cities on Mars, interplanetary transportation of people and spaceships.
To bookmarks
About cities on Mars
According to Musk's plans, building a city on Mars with a population of one million will become possible within the next 50 years. Thus, Musk wants to turn humanity into an interplanetary species of creatures. In his opinion, people must leave Earth in order to “avoid end-of-the-world events” and “final destruction.”
I think we have two options. The first is that we will remain on Earth forever and will finally disappear. Alternative path- space civilization.
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX
According to him, in the current century a large Martian city could be created, which would become not just a transit point, but a functioning society with its own “foundries and pizzerias.”
About space transportation of people
The entrepreneur said that he was going to build " colonial fleet Mars" of more than a thousand spacecraft that will transport up to 200 passengers and Construction Materials to build infrastructure in one flight.
According to Musk's estimates, the first colonists will set off to explore Mars in ten years, and it will take 40 to 100 years to completely populate the city.
If a million people live in a Martian city, then the first Martian civilization will be able to provide for itself. You can fly once every two years on a ship that can accommodate 100 people - in this way you will get a million in 10 thousand flights.
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX
Musk hasn't given up on the idea of increasing passenger capacity in the future. He said that the ship will be able to accommodate more than 200 people, and the cost of the ticket will decrease.
Such trips will be very fun and interesting. No one will be bored. The passenger and crew compartment is configured so that you can “float” in zero gravity. There will be cinema halls, lecture halls and a restaurant.
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX
Musk is already planning the first manned flight to Mars in 2022. He said he wanted to die on Mars, but “not because of a collision with it.”
About the differences between conditions on Mars and other planets
In 2015, NASA announced the formation of the first colonies on Mars by 2030. As the first stage of planetary exploration, the space agency planned to create bases for living on the Moon.
However, Musk criticized this decision in his article, saying that Mars is more suitable for building a city than the Moon, because a day on Mars is only 30 minutes longer than on Earth; the planet has enough sunlight and there is an atmosphere, and gravity is 37 percent of Earth's.
Musk also explained why he chose Mars rather than any other planet in the solar system. According to him, high pressure on Venus would do "really difficult job", Mercury is too close to the Sun, and Jupiter and its moons, on the contrary, are difficult to reach.
About rockets
Despite the fact that on this moment The approximate cost of a human flight to Mars is $10 billion; the entrepreneur expects to reduce costs to $100 thousand by refueling rockets with tankers directly in space.
It also involves the construction of plants on Mars for the extraction of methane and the production of new fuel based on it for sending ships back to Earth. Thanks to methane, molecules of which can be produced from carbon dioxide and water in the planet’s atmosphere, the likelihood of a successful takeoff and landing increases.
It would be quite absurd to try to build a city on Mars where spaceships would fly and not return to Earth. In this case, we will have a huge graveyard of missiles.
With the successful launch of a heavy rocket, Elon Musk wrote his name in the history of space exploration - but this was not enough for him, and he turned a scientific and technical experiment into a science fiction show.
Burgundy convertible, star man, Isaac Asimov and David Bowie - Musk crammed so many cultural beacons into "Heavy Falcon" that your head is spinning. But - don't panic! The BBC Russian service looked into the cosmic symbolism of Elon Musk.
- SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy rocket into space with a Tesla convertible
- Elon Musk's rocket is ready to send his car to Mars
1. Starman
A man in space is always more interesting than a piece of iron, even when it is a sports convertible - more on that below. Visual history Star Travels is written with portraits of discoverers: Gagarin in the USSR helmet, Leonov aboard Voskhod 2, Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.
Illustration copyright NASA Image caption First men on the moon: the famous photograph of Buzz Aldrin taken by Neil ArmstrongMusk staked his claim in this landmark visual by placing a doll in a real spacesuit comfortably behind the wheel of a cherry red Tesla. And he didn’t stop at the photo: the flight was broadcast directly on YouTube by three video cameras.
2. David Bowie
That Musk feeds tender feelings to early Bowie, there is no doubt now. The Tesla inventor entrusted his personal car to "Starman" - the hero of the song of the same name - and now he is driving a convertible into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
“There’s a star man in the sky, he wants to come down to meet him - but he’s afraid that he’ll blow our minds,” Bowie sang in a romantic anthem of the 1970s, bequeathing on behalf of the orbital being to save the planet for children.
The starman behind the wheel faces a long journey into the depths of the solar system, and Musk decided to brighten up interplanetary loneliness with another cosmic masterpiece of Bowie - the song “Space Oddity”, in which the daring pioneer of stellar travel is forever freed from earth’s gravity.
"I'm sitting in my tin, high above the world. Planet Earth is so blue. And nothing can be done."
And Musk didn’t stop there: the soundtrack to Animated Falcon Heavy launch trailer he chose "Life On Mars" by the same Bowie.
3. Convertible
Elon Musk's Space X launched an electric sports car produced by his other company, Tesla, a day before the automaker announced a record quarterly loss of $675 million.
What will remain in your memory - a roadster soaring above the Earth or an accounting report?
- Elon Musk promised a Tesla electric pickup and a “disco mode” of the interior
Musk's bright marketing move is designed not only for earthly competitors and consumers. He tried to stake his claim in the still free interplanetary car market and secure for Tesla the title of not only the fastest car for the longest trips, but also the crown of human achievements in the automotive industry.
Without undue modesty, Musk labeled the car: “Made by people from planet Earth.”
4. "Don't panic!"
The inscription on the dashboard of the convertible can be taken as an appeal from Musk to Tesla shareholders, creditors and customers.
But it also has a story: DON"T PANIC is borrowed from the cover of the cult "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.
5. Isaac Asimov
Musk put the Foundation series of books in Starman's car. American science fiction writer Azimova, main character of which Gary Seldon is a visionary and encyclopedist, the savior of humanity's heritage.
The texts are laser etched onto quartz glass - the latest development from the University of Southampton. The ultra-strong disc can withstand temperatures up to 1000°, and at 190° its shelf life is 13.8 billion years.
6. Love and Falcons
The echoes with the science fiction subculture do not end with Adams and Asimov.
Not only that, the name of the rockets - Falcon - quite directly refers to the Millennium Falcon ship, on which Han Solo and Chewbacca with varying success participated in " Star Wars"George Lucas.
The stages of the heavy modification of the Falcon landed on one of offshore platforms Space X entitled "Of Course I Still Love You".
As for the second platform - "Just Read the Instructions" - Musk borrowed the name from the Scottish science fiction writer Iain Banks, who gave such fancy names to almost everything spaceships in your own fictional universe.
Democratization of space, competition among private companies and social media done space race spectacular.
Musk said a new word in rocket science, in Once again proving that he can create effortlessly and combine youthful romanticism with the pragmatism of a brilliant marketer.
This did not occur to serious scientists, functionaries and designers in an era when states dominated space, primarily the USA and the USSR.
If the Politburo had been headed by Musk in 1987, who knows, perhaps the Soviet super-heavy Energia rocket would have sent into orbit not an 80-ton prototype of a combat space laser, but a cherry-colored “nine”.
Donatas Banionis is driving, the Talker bird is on his shoulder, “Earth in the Porthole” is wheezing from the Elektronika cassette player, and in the trunk are 250 volumes of the “Library of Adventures and Science Fiction.”
And on the dashboard - “Let's go!”