| Beginning Date: | October, 1997 |
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| Ending Date: | October, 1997 |
| The Results are Back! | |
In October of 1997, Space Shuttle mission STS-87 will include an investigation of plants in space sponsored by NASA and NSAU, the National Space Agency of Ukraine. Wisconsin Fast Plants will be onboard the shuttle mission and you can join the investigation by growing a special dwarf variety of Fast Plants back on earth, at the same time, as part of the control group!
Join students, teachers, scientists, and astronauts as they investigate plants in space!
In May of 1995, the presidents of the United States and Ukraine issued a joint statement on cooperation in space, directing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU) to cooperate on a joint Space Shuttle mission. The United States and Ukraine announced that a Ukrainian payload specialist would fly aboard this mission, STS-87, scheduled for October of 1997. The project was named the "Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment" or "CUE."
From plant science microgravity experiments on previous missions of the Russian, Ukrainian and American space programs, scientists have observed various abnormal growth and developmental phenomena in plants. The CUE projects are designed to address specific questions raised in prior experiments.
American scientists and their teams of colleagues and students, with Ukrainian scientists and their research teams, will be running 12 separate experiments as part of the science payload on STS-87. Several plant biology experiments will be run in an environmentally controlled Plant Growth Facility.
One experiment involves the controlled pollination and in-flight fixation of pollinated flowers of a special dwarf stock of rapid-cycling Brassica rapa (Wisconsin Fast Plants) known as "AstroPlants." A Ukrainian payload specialist will be performing these experimental procedures. This question is part of a more general question: how will plants grow and function in microgravity considering that they have evolved and existed in an environment of the Earth's gravity?
As a part of the total CUE mission, an Educational Project has been established with the Wisconsin Fast Plants Program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, through the Ukrainian Junior Academy of Science In Kiev. The Education Project involves teachers and students in both countries and is called "TSIPS" - Teachers and Students Investigating Plants in Space.
During the same time as the joint Space Shuttle flight, students throughout the United States and Ukraine will be undertaking experiments to determine what is normal for biological events or stages in the life cycle of AstroPlants under Earth's gravity. Seedlings of other plants may also be used to examine the effects of gravity and light on orientation and guidance in plants. The information that students gather will provide them with the basis for understanding a number of biological phenomena and principles, including phenotypic expression, variation, growth, orientation, reproduction and embrogeny. Students can compare their observations with those made in the microgravity environment by the CUE researchers.
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