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EXPERIMENTS Research results lost, says NASA
By Los Angeles Times, 2/3/2003
''Science was at a premium,'' Ron Dittemore, NASA's space shuttle program manager said at the Johnson Space Center. ''The folks on the ground were just ecstatic about the amount of science they were reaping. It was an amazing mission. We were ecstatic over the results and we were looking forward to getting back to the crew and telling them what a great job they had done.'' It remained unclear late Saturday how much of the research survived Columbia's destruction. Some of it had been shipped back home via computers and satellites, officials said. But officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration acknowledged that much of it, such as cell cultures and vials of blood, could only have been analyzed after a successful return to Earth. ''We were getting some of it downloaded but we lost quite a bit of data,'' said Mohamed Abid, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California who was part of a team conducting experiments on the efficiency of combustion engines. Through that experiment, the astronauts had set off sparks on board the shuttle, creating flames the size of ping pong balls that were suspended in a zero-gravity chamber. The astronauts were able to gather new data on combustion, an experiment that Abid had hoped would lead to a renaissance in the construction of engines for cars, planes, and rockets.
''We only got a fraction of the data,'' Abid said. ''We were relying on the data to enhance our understanding of how this process works.'' Most space shuttles in recent years have been routed to the Hubble space telescope and the international space station, and did not have enough room to carry much laboratory equipment. This was the first shuttle expedition in at least two years dedicated almost entirely to scientific experiments. It was also the first shuttle equipped with a newly developed pressurized aluminum room outfitted as a modern laboratory, accessed through a tunnel and known as the Research Double Module. Crew members, split into ''red'' and ''blue'' teams, had worked 24 hours a day in two shifts for the past 16 days to conduct more than 80 experiments, officials said. NASA boasted of the broad implications of space exploration while touting Columbia's latest mission; its official description included a reference to understanding the ''elegant workings of the inner universe.'' But behind the scenes, the trip was often focused less on the cosmos and more on everyday life on Earth, from developing perfume scents to improving crop yields. The experiments were informally divided into three areas of science -- physics, biology, and the study of space exploration itself. In one physics project, the astronauts compressed granular materials to improve engineers' understanding of construction techniques. It was hoped that information would lead to techniques for creating stronger foundations under buildings in areas prone to earthquakes, floods, and landslides. In biology, astronauts took advantage of weightlessness to meld a series of cell cultures, enhancing their genetic characteristics and potentially leading to advances in fighting prostate cancer. Protein crystals used to study potential cancer therapies also were grown on the shuttle and appear to have been lost, NASA officials said. Finally, a series of studies addressed the impact of space travel on the body.
This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 2/3/2003.
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© Copyright 2003 New York Times Company |
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OUSTON -- The space shuttle carried scores of scientific experiments with intended applications back on Earth, ranging from the development of new construction techniques to the growth of cell cultures that might be used to fight cancer.
