Student CUE-TSIPS Questions & Answers

CUE-TSIPS Student Questions

The following questions were submitted from students of the CUE-TSIPS lead teachers but were not among those included as part of the live downlinks.

Each question is followed by the name of the student who asked the question (if known), followed by the name of the lead teacher, in parentheses.

Paul Williams (Wisconsin Fast Plants Program)

Can we speed up the fertilization process with chemicals? (Leshia Davis, Johnny Robinson)

Not that we know of. That would make a good experiment.

How does a plant know how to orient itself in space? (Mark Cresse)

That's the big question.

Would the water quality in our communities make a difference in our plants' nutritional plane? (Becky Stair, Mike Williams)

It could. Are there any chemical elements in your water supply that would affect plants? This would also make a good experiment.

Meri Cummings (Classroom of the Future, BioBLAST Program)

What size crop would be needed for oxygen replenishment on a long-term space flight? (Mark Cresse)

The answer to this question depends on the crop or combination of crops grown and the number, size and activity level of the crew. Based on the 4 crops included in BioBLAST (data obtained from Kennedy Space Center):

Lettuce 0.00047 kg per square meter crop per hour of light
Potato 0.00333 kg per square meter crop per hour of light
Soybean 0.00167 kg per square meter crop per hour of light
Wheat 0.00237 kg per square meter crop per hour of light

It's not quite as simple as looking at just these numbers, though. Since lettuce doesn't require as high a growing chamber as the other crops, you may be able to stack more lettuce in the same volume in a chamber. Also, some plants tolerate more hours of light per day ( a longer photoperiod) than others, for instance wheat and lettuce can grow under 24 hours of light.

A "generic" crew member might have an oxygen need of 0.836 kg oxygen per day. This varies with the size and activity level of the crew.

You might want to visit the Johnson Space Center Advanced Life Support web site to learn more about the Lunar/Mars Life Support Test Project (LMLSTP) that is currently underway: http://pet.jsc.nasa.gov/alssee

This question is exactly in line with the BioBLAST project! BioBLAST is a high school biology curriculum supplement which involves students in using simulations and hands-on lab experiments to balance an enclosed life support system on a lunar or Mars base for 3 years. Please see our web site at http://www.cotf.edu/BioBLAST to learn about participating in the BioBLAST beta testing this spring.

Tom Dreschel (NASA, Kennedy Space Center)

How cold/hot does it get in space orbit? (Pablo Tafolla, Mike Williams)

Inside the Space Shuttle cabin, temperature typically ranges between 20 and 30 degrees centigrade. Outside, in the vacuum of space, it depends if it is in sunlight where it can get to hundreds of degrees or in the shade where it can get down to well below zero.

What happens when you get cut in space? (Teresa Abbott, Mike Williams)

You bleed as you would on Earth except that the blood could possibly float away. There are indications that people may be more likely to get infections in space but there is not much data as yet.

Does your hair grow differently in space? (Teresa Abbott, Mike Williams)

Not that we know of but it can look pretty funny, as on a bad hair day. This would be a good experiment for people living on the Space Station.

Is there anyone in the launch that has never been in space before? What missions have the experienced crew members? (Julia Ackerson, Mike Williams)

Biographies of the crew are available on the Internet at http://www.osf.hq.nasa.gov/shuttle/sts87 and are included in this mailing.

How much do you get paid for going into space? (Teresa Abbott, Mike Williams)

Classified. Actually, the salaries of the astronauts are the same as those of any government worker at the same GS rank.

How "hard" is the water on the Shuttle?

The water on the Shuttle is very low in dissolved minerals because it comes from the fuel cells that provide electricity for the Shuttle. Hydrogen and oxygen are combined in the fuel cells to produce current and water is a by-product.

Iodine is added before it is used by the crew to kill bacteria.

Have any commercially successful ventures stemmed directly from the Shuttle missions? (Lauren Ball, Suzy Behel)

Many items that have been developed for the space program have been used commercially, the material used in the Shuttle tiles is used in racing cars to protect the driver from heat. Many pharmaceutical companies anticipate that purer drugs might be produced in space which would better treat the diseases they were developed for.

How has the US Space Program been affected by the accidents on Mir? (Laura Mills, Suzy Behel)

On one hand, there has been a lot of negative news coverage because of the problems with Mir, but NASA is learning a great deal on not only how to live in space but how to correct problems and maintain equipment in space. This will be very useful experience for the international space station.

Do all the plants being studied on the mission (soybeans, mosses, Fast Plants) appear to react to microgravity in similar ways or do they react differently? (Jill Ricker, Suzy Behel)

We expect that the different plants will respond differently to various aspects of the space environment. Of course, they will be grown in different equipment, which will provide a different environment for each type of plant. Some will be grown in the dark, some only in red light, and some in white light.

Were there any seeds that were planted after launch and, if so, are there any noticeable differences in their growth pattern? (Michael Graham, Suzy Behel)

Yes, some seed will be planted on orbit and from prior experience, we expect the space grown plants will be somewhat different from the controls. They probably will have thinner stems and less lignin (a main chemical in wood) because they do not have to support the plant in microgravity.

Would you have people try to live up in space if the plant experiment works? (Rachael Vasquez, Roger Evans)

Yes, we hope to one day send crews to Mars and beyond, which would mean growing food during the journey, especially in missions that extend for more than six months.

How does being in space for such a long time affect your body? Does it make you feel sick during take-off or make you feel nauseous, or nothing happens to you at all? How do you feel while you're up there? (Georgia Tassos, Roger Evans)

The body adapts to the microgravity environment so that your muscles get weaker (from not having to fight gravity), bones begin to get weaker as well on long missions. Many astronauts experience nausea in the first day of a mission but most adapt and feel fine for the rest of the mission.

Does it take long to recover from a non-gravity environment? (Cheri Boen, Mike Williams)

This depends on how long the mission is whether the astronaut exercises while on orbit. For Shuttle missions, in a few days to a weeks they are back to normal. For extended missions, such as on Mir, it can take weeks to get back to normal. This varies greatly from one astronaut to another.

Can food go bad on a spacecraft? (Ashley Neu, Roger Evans)

Yes, just as on Earth, if it is not stored properly.

How does the human heart rate change when exposed to free space? (Robert Davoudi, Roger Evans)

In microgravity, on a spacecraft, the fluids such as blood in the body shift toward the head, giving a "skinny leg, puffy face" look to the astronauts. This affects the size of the heart, and may also affect the blood pressure and heart rate.

How do you prepare to go up into space? (Manuel Cadenas, Roger Evans)

Astronauts go through about a year of astronaut training and then train for a month to fly on a specific mission. Each astronaut has specific jobs on the mission and performing experiments is only one of the jobs.

How many G's do you pull on launch and descending back to Earth? (Roger Evans)

Two to three G's is typical for launch and landing.

Have you ever brought a living animal to space and if so did it die? If it lived, what happened to it? (Tri Tran, Roger Evans)

Many animals (from fruit flies, fish, salamanders, quail, mice, rats, monkeys and many more) have been flown in various spacecraft and none have died because of microgravity. However, changes have been observed in their muscle, bone and other organs.

What's it like to sleep in a non-gravity environment? (Pablo Tafolla, Mike Williams)

I am told it is very pleasant, you can sleep anywhere, just floating. Astronauts on the Shuttle usually attach their sleeping bags to a wall or sleep in bunks that look like lockers.

Mary Musgrave (Louisiana State University)

Was the cosmonaut trained to do certain tasks such as pollination before the actual space shuttle flight? If so, was the training in a simulated microgravity environment? (Sara Volkman, Judy Williams)

Yes. Most of the training was done at 1-g, however a single session was done on the KC-135 aircraft where repeated 20-second segments of microgravity are experienced during parabolic flight.

At what temperature and level of humidity will you keep the Plant Growth Chambers? How are these variables controlled in the PGC's? (Alice Engel, Ken Mills)

Temperature set point is 23 degrees C plus or minus 2 degrees C. The humidity is maintained between 70-85%.

How many plants are you working with on the flight? (various classrooms)

B-STIC has 18 total; B-PAC has 54 seeds per PGC.

Do you plan to pollinate randomly? If so, do you have a "method" for doing so truly at random? If not, how will you ensure in microgravity that pollen grains will not float around and inadvertently pollinate some of the plants? (Alice Pan, Ken Mills)

Brassica pollen is sticky and not readily released from the anthers especially when the plants are grown in PGCs, thus we anticipate little trouble from inadvertent pollination. The payload specialist will mark all flowers in a PGC that are at the right stage for pollination using strips of thin, colored tape, and then collect pollen from all the marked flowers with a single beestick (per PGC) each day. This will ensure a mixture of pollen for pollinating the flowers.

Could the soil become saturated with the fertilizer solution since the solution can rise through the soil with much less resistance in a microgravity environment? How will you prevent soil "erosion" from the lack of gravity? (Matt Seidel, Ken Mills)

The flight plants will be grown in a phenolic foam substrate similar to florist's foam. This material retains liquid well. It is true that spaceflight plants have a more "waterlogged" root environment than plants grown in the same substrate in 1-g due to the changed distribution of liquid in the medium.

Will the stress of lift-off and re-entry/landing affect the plants at all? When AstroPlants were taken into space from a previous flight on February 3-11, 1995, "video downlinks show that the plants were physically disturbed during thruster firings." How did you solve this problem or take it into account? (Mark Cresse)

The plants probabl;y experience more mechanical stress during their trip to Kennedy Space Center on commercial airplanes that they do during lift-off. At Kennedy Space Center "shake tests" are conducted to test out the effects of vibration on shuttle experiments.

How were the plants secured during take off? (Cortny Riblett, Judy Williams)

Individual tubes containing two plants each are firmly packed in the PGC base witht the same phenolic foam support that they grow in. They are vertically oriented on the launch pad.

How do you prepare the nutrient solution in a microgravity environment? (Casey McIntire, Judy Williams)

The nutrient solution is prepared from a liquid concentrate that is diluted with galley water prior to application.

Is the pre-flowering population of AstroPlants being monitored for the amount of oxygen or carbon dioxide use during their growth and development? (Casey McIntire, Judy Williams)

No.

Is the AstroPlant seed population being monitored for the amount of oxygen used from their environment during the process of germination? (Casey McIntire, Judy Williams)

No.

Do you find the impact of 0-gravity affecting the growing embryos? Is there any visible change in expected growth of the embryos? (Jane Hamill, Ken Mills)

This must be addressed post-flight, but our experience with embryo growth in microgravity in a related plant, Arabidopsis, would suggest that embryo growth may occur normally if the appropriate physical environment can be maintained.

Has anyone ever analyzed the seed pod contents of past space experiments? (Jeremiah Koop, Mike Williams)

In a recent experiment on the Mir space station, seeds were produced. Astronaut Mike Foale actually opened the seed pods on orbit and planted the seeds that had formed in space. These seeds grew and became the first plants to grow in space from space-grown seeds. Analysis of the seeds is currently underway.

If pollen is being produced by the plants, does it have any noticeable differences from Earth-based plant pollen? (Joseph Kenski, Suzy Behel)

This must be addressed post-flight. Examination of beesticks used by Mike Foale to collect pollen from Brassica plants on the Mir space station suggests that pollen will be produced by the plants in the CUE. Our experience with pollen formation in microgravity in a related plant, Arabidopsis, would suggest that pollen production is very sensitive to environmental factors that may be influenced by microgravity (such as air flow and moisture distribution).

Is any of the pollen produced during the mission being sampled for later study? (Jennifer Pierce, Suzy Behel)

Each beestick is stored in a dessicant after use for later analysis of the pollen. This gives us a record of pollen production by the plants in each PGC over time.

Was a controlled amount of time allowed to elapse after the flower bud opened before the flower was hand pollinated? (Scott Koethe, Judy Williams)

Flowers to be pollinated on a given day are selected based on their developmental stage. Once pollination is started, it is performed daily. In this way, flowers of a set age are pollinated.

Did the flower buds open in their normal pattern from the bottom to the top of the flower stem? (Cortny Riblett, Judy Williams)

This must be addressed post-flight. We anticipate that the flowers will open in a normal pattern since the flowering meristem is formed on earth prior to launch.

Did the flower parts other than the pistil wither on the AstroPlants as an indicator that normal fertilization had occurred? (Tara Gohl, Judy Williams)

This must be answered post-flight or during flight.

How many days after sowing was the first plant pollinated? (Tara Gohl, Judy Williams)

This will depend on the rate of flower opening in orbit, but should be about 14 or 15 days after sowing.

Are there any specific differences between the PGC set-ups being used in the space shuttle and those being used in the ground control? (Kiley Schneider, Judy Williams)

The PGC set-ups used in the ground control are identical to the ones used in flight. Temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide in the mid-deck area of the orbiter are simulated for the ground control at Kennedy Space Center's Orbiter Environment Simulator (OES). The classroom PGCs differ from the flight hardware in several ways: root matrix [phenolic foam vs. peatlite soil], airflow direction, CO2 concentration, and light intensity/quality.

Do you think the cleanliness of the PGC's affects the growth rate and floral clock? We are speaking about the plexiglass to be specific. (Peggy Henson)

No.

What will happen to the plants when they get home? (Melissa Ramanan, Ken Bone)

The plants will be fixed for microscopy or frozen for biochemical analyses. A few of the siliques will be place in tissue culture so that the developing seeds can grow into new plants. These plants will then be compared with plants from cultured seeds that were formed on earth.

How do you keep water enclosed in the PGC's? (Mark Cresse)

The volume of nutrient solution to be added is carefully worked out to avoid exceeding the water-holding capacity of the phenolic foam.

Are you finding a big difference in the usage of water in your PGC's (as compared to the "control" grown on earth)? (Peggy Henson)

Water usage will be determined post-flight when the PGC's are weighed.

Is a "wicking system" with capillary action being used to provide water to the plants? (Cortny Riblett, Judy Williams)

The phenolic foam root matrix used in the experiment stores and transports water well.

Will water be absorbed from the reservoir to the wick faster due to the lack of gravity acting as an opposing force against capillary action? If so, will the water intake be measured so it equals that on earth? (Rudy Lewis, Ken Mills)

The phenolic foam root matrix serves as a moisture reservoir for the plants. When we weigh the PGC's post-flight we will have a better idea of how much liquid was used by the plants on orbit compared to the ground controls.

If the plants were unable to mature aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, but plants were able to reproduce onboard space station Mir, what happened or was changed to make this possible, and how likely is it that plants would be able to reproduce consistently in a zero-gravity environment? (Remy Fiorentino, Ken Mills)

Each experiment allows us to better understand the microgravity environment and its effects on plant growth and development. Plants growing in the Greenhouse on the Mir space station experience some different environmental features from plants growing in the PGF on the space shuttle orbiter.

How is the height of the plants affected by lack of gravity? Are the size of the stem and leaves increasing proportionally? Could these plants adjust to the conditions on earth? (Jim Lucey)

This must be addressed post-flight.

Have you considered a gel-type media for the Fast Plants? (Mark Cresse)

Agar and polyacrylamide gels were tested but gave less vigorous plants than the phenolic foam root matrix chosen.

Are the seeds produced in this experiment going to be used in further space-related experiments? (Mark Cresse)

No.

Once all the data have been collected, summarized and analyzed, how will they be interpreted, and what significance will they hold in the greater field of plant biology and space technology? Do you think it is possible that this experiment could open up doors to say, possibilities like space crops? (Cat McManus, Ken Mills)

Information on seed production in microgravity is needed if plants are going to be used as a component of future life support systems for long duration missions.