Space station to major in scientific experiments

WASHINGTON -- Right before Christmas, a Russian rocket carrying three astronauts -- one American, one Russian and one Canadian -- launched from a chilly spaceport in Kazakhstan to begin a five-month mission to the International Space Station.

Unlike many of its predecessors, this crew's job is straightforward: Do science, including studying solar rays and investigating how microgravity affects fish and their bones, which could provide insight on why astronauts lose bone density while in space.

"Twenty-thirteen really promises to be a productive one," said Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, after arriving at the outpost aloft.

If that's true, NASA will get one step closer toward fulfilling the promise of the $100-billion space station, intended as a groundbreaking laboratory circling about 354 kilometres above Earth.

Although critics have questioned why it has taken so long -- work began on the station in 1998 -- NASA said the new emphasis on science and the arrival of new equipment mean the future looks bright.

"As the coming year unfolds, NASA will continue to conduct important research on the International Space Station, which continues to yield scientific benefits and provide key information about how humans may live and thrive in the harsh environment of space," NASA leaders wrote in a year-end status report.

Key is the addition of new equipment.

By next fall, NASA plans to send to the station an "animal enclosure module" that will allow scientists to study the effects of weightlessness on rodents. That could help doctors develop better medicines for bone and muscle ailments. The 27-kilogram module had flown 23 times aboard the space shuttle.

Marybeth Edeen, NASA manager of the station's national laboratory, said the rodents could be used to test drugs intended to treat osteoporosis or illnesses that degrade the muscles, such as Lou Gehrig's disease.

"A 30-day-old mouse on the station has the bone and muscle structure of a 60- to 70-year-old woman," said Edeen, adding that rapid changes brought on by weightlessness enable drug companies to quickly assess the results of experimental medicines.

"You start to get some quick models to test different pharmaceuticals," she said.

Similarly, NASA plans to increase the number of plant test beds on the station and add a new "atom lab" in the next couple years that will be cold enough to slow atomic particles, giving scientists a chance to better study their makeup.

Edeen said 2013 also promises to yield results from the alpha magnetic spectrometer (AMS), a van-size device that's essentially a tube wrapped in powerful magnets. Designed to study interstellar particles, it was flown to the station in 2011 and attached to the outside of the observatory. So far, it has tracked more than 27 billion cosmic rays.

The hope is the AMS can provide new insight about the universe and its formation, particularly as it relates to a mysterious substance called anti-matter. Scientific theory holds the universe was formed from equal parts of matter and anti-matter, but finding traces of anti-matter is difficult -- it's annihilated when it comes into contact with matter.

More could be known in six months. "The first (AMS) papers will come out in summer 2013," Edeen said.

-- The Orlando Sentinel

Getting to this point, however, hasn't been easy.

Though crews have staffed the station since 2000, astronauts were averaging only three hours of science work a week as late as 2008.

Two events changed that: NASA and its partners finished the station, and the crew in 2009 expanded from three to six. Last year, astronauts spent about 50 hours a week on science, including research on how microgravity affects the spinal cord and observations of Earth's environment, such as melting glaciers.

Still, there has been lingering criticism of why NASA didn't better prepare for the station's completion and whether the scientific returns are worth the roughly $1.5 billion spent annually to operate it.

-- The Orlando Sentinel

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 6, 2013 A5