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Tiny microorganisms that flew through space and survived harsh temperature fluctuations and microgravity could soon be invading your beer 'fridge.

Rich Glover, president of Microgravity Enterprises of Albuquerque, shot the little creatures - OK, they're yeast cells - 75 miles into the sky on a rocket at the New Mexico SpacePort in April.

The yeast-ronauts' mission? To make it home alive so they can ferment sugar in the first commercial "space beer," which will likely be publicly released for the first time at Kelly's Brewery in Nob Hill next month, Glover said.

Still, the journey to weed out the yeast with The Right Stuff wasn't easy.

"It can be hard keeping yeast alive in space," Glover said. "We lost just under half of the yeast we sent up because of a packaging problem."

The remaining yeast are no doubt battle hardened, but they are fundamentally unchanged from the way they were before they were shot into space, he added.

"We did our own testing before and after launch to make sure no harmful changes came about," Glover said.

If this all sounds a bit gimmicky, well . . . it is, Glover admits.

So are the company's other two products, Antimatter energy drink and Space2O electrolyte water, which should also be publicly available in July.

For those drinks, Microgravity Enterprises shot multivitamins and electrolytes into space.

"You have to pack those correctly, too," Glover said. "You get extremes from hot to cold, and things have to survive the physical shock of the trip."

But while the drinks may be more amusing than substantive, the overall goal of Microgravity Enterprises is noble, Glover said.

"What we really want to do is fund space manufacturing of pharmaceuticals - like antibiotics - and manufacturing materials," Glover said. "We're selling these drinks as the first true space product that anybody can have, and the proceeds from that will help us achieve our bigger goals."

Antibiotics grown in space have some advantages over those grown on Earth, he said.

"There's a lot of material out about growing antibiotics and other materials in space," Glover said. "In general, you get a better quality product and more of it than you do growing it on the ground."

Space and the microgravity environment also let scientists build materials - like super-strong metals - that can't be built on Earth, said Liz Holm, a materials engineer at Sandia National Laboratories.

"In microgravity, you can mix two materials where on earth you couldn't because you'd have one floating on the other," Holm said. "Strength could be one property you'd get if you made a very fine mixture of two materials. You could also get different electrical properties or higher purity."

That's something the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is working on, Holm said.

Still, the materials and medicine phase of the company's development is still a ways off, Glover said.

First, Microgravity Enterprises needs to build up a following for its drinks.

One such potential market is video game players, who tend to like things with a strange edge to them, Glover said.

That sounds about right to Jason Montoya, president of the National Video Game Association, who said he's eager to try the energy drink when it comes out.

"I think it's a cool marketing idea," Montoya said. "It's a bit pet rock-ish, but it's fun. I'm into fun."

The drinks will also cost the same as other commercial drinks - so Antimatter will be competitive with drinks like Red Bull, Glover said.

"You won't have to pay $5 a can, and every drink you take, you're drinking something that's been to space and back," Glover said.

"I'd rather have something that's been in space than just on boring old Earth," Montoya said.

Holm, who is a self-admitted space-nut, said she is also excited about trying the drinks.

"I think the novelty factor is really cool," Holm said. "I myself would gladly drink something that had been in space just to feel the closeness. I'll probably never go into space, but I'd like to."

That's the general feeling of everyone at the Albuquerque startup company, Glover said.

"In general, we're just a bunch of space guys and gals," he said. "We all grew up watching `Star Wars' and `Star Trek,' and none of that stuff has happened. Government funding for space fluctuates too much. We want to put space research and development in the hands of consumers - and the private sector."

The company also has an altruistic streak. For every ingredient launch, it is donating some rocket space to high school and college students so they can run space experiments, Glover said.

That's also something that sounds like a great idea, Montoya said.

"Anybody that makes a drink that lets me stay up longer playing games, but also gives me the potential to heal myself with better antibiotics and encourages education - they get my vote," Montoya said.