Scientific American Guest Blogs Living Interplanetary Space Flight Experiment–or Why Were All the Strange Creatures on the Shuttle Endeavour?

My article from this morning on Scientific American Guest Blogs

Living Interplanetary Space Flight Experiment–or Why Were All the Strange Creatures on the Shuttle Endeavour?  by David Warmflash

How the Space Shuttle Endeavour got Her British Name

How many times has this happened to you? You're writing an article, or a blog entry, or a tweet about the space shuttle that is on her way home from her final flight as the STS-134 mission comes to an end. Next thing you know, you've typed the name "Endeavor", instead of "Endeavour". "Damn autocorrect" usually gets you through the moment. For those of you in the UK, this has never been a problem, but here across the pond, it's been a recurring experience for the last 15 days.

But did you ever wonder why NASA's fifth orbiting space shuttle acquired her name with the British spelling? 10 seconds of research on this topic lead me to the orbiter information page on the NASA Kennedy Space Center website. And therein lies the answer:

NASA's Endeavour was named for the HMS Endeavour:

"Endeavour was named after a ship chartered to traverse the South Pacific in 1768 and captained by 18th century British explorer James Cook, an experienced seaman, navigator and amateur astronomer. He commanded a crew of 93 men, including 11 scientists and artists.

"Cook's main objective, tasked by the British Admiralty and the Royal Society, was to observe the Transit of Venus at Tahiti. This reading enabled astronomers to find the distance of the Sun from the Earth, which then could be used as a unit of measurement in calculating the parameters of the universe..."

149 million kilometers, or 93 million miles from Earth. This is equal to about eight light minutes, which is to say that it takes light eight minutes to travel from the surface of the Sun to Earth. The second planet from the Sun, just slightly less massive than Earth, and the closest planet to Earth, Venus is called Earth’s sister planet. Despite the proximity, due to the thick cloud layer in the Venusian atmosphere, humanity would know nothing about the environment at the surface of Venus until the advent of space probes in the middle of the 20th century. But the basics of her movement around the Sun, and the distances between the Sun, Venus, and Earth were worked out based on the measurements taken by the scientists on Cook’s voyage.

The NASA article goes on:

"Cook's achievements on Endeavour were numerous, including the accurate charting of New Zealand and Australia and successfully navigating the Great Barrier Reef. Thousands of new plant specimens and animal species were observed and illustrated on this maiden voyage. Cook also established the usefulness of including scientists on voyages of exploration."

So now we know. Time to add the British spelling to the computer's dictionary.

LIFE Experiment to Return to Earth when Space Shuttle Endeavour's Last Flight Touches Down

Adapted from The Planetary Society's pre-mission press release


Late Sunday night, the space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station. Commanded by Mark Kelly, husband of Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords, the Endeavour is carrying not only human astronauts but a legion of microscopic passengers in the Planetary Society's Shuttle LIFE experiment. Landing is scheduled for 2:32 am Wednesday at NASA's Kennedy Space center, in Florida.

Can life naturally transfer from planet to planet? LIFE, the Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, was developed to test aspects of the transpermia hypothesis -- the ability of microbial life to survive an interplanetary voyage. The largest of the LIFE organisms launching on the shuttle will be tardigrades, or water bears, which are no bigger than the head of a pin.

Shuttle-LIFE will serve as a test run for Phobos LIFE, a larger collection of organisms that the Planetary Society will send on a three-year trip aboard a Russian spacecraft to the Martian moon Phobos and back to Earth in a capsule that will simulate a meteoroid. Phobos LIFE is set to launch at the end of 2011.

"One cannot help but wonder if it's possible for a living organism to make the trip from one planet to another?" said Bill Nye, Executive Director of the Planetary Society. "How about from Mars to the Earth?"

Shuttle LIFE's Main Goals

* Testing the effects of low Earth orbit spaceflight on the organisms,

* Providing a comparison for the upcoming long duration Phobos LIFE mission,

* Serving as a "dress rehearsal" for Phobos-LIFE, complete with loading, unloading, and analyzing organisms in laboratory conditions, and

* Engaging the public in the exciting discussion of whether life might be able to travel naturally between planets.

Over 16 days, Shuttle-LIFE has been testing the effects of low-Earth orbit spaceflight on five diverse species of microorganisms packed in tiny, heat-sealed, Delrin plastic sample tubes. For the Phobos mission, the miniature sample tubes will be packed into a nearly indestructible titanium capsule that looks like a small hockey puck.

The five life forms being flown in Shuttle-LIFE are Tardigrades; the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans and Bacillus subtilis; and the archaea Haloarcula marismortui and Pyrococcus furiosus. A passenger manifest explains what characteristics of the different microorganisms - such as resistance to radiation or extreme hardiness - made them good choices for space travel.

"The millions of tiny space voyagers in Shuttle-LIFE are set to take a big journey and give us information about life in space, and they'll do it all without any checked baggage," said Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society's Director of Projects.

Partners For Shuttle LIFE

Partners on Shuttle LIFE, who will be providing organisms and pre and post flight analyses, are a team at ATCC in Manassas, Virginia led by Tim Lilburn and Amy Smith; Ingemar Joensson at Kristianstad University in Sweden; and a German DLR team, led by Petra Rettberg and Marko Wassmann. Phobos LIFE science Principal Investigator David Warmflash from Portland State University is involved with the science planning and analysis. Sample tubes were produced by Lindel Engineering in Tucson, Arizona based on designs by Bud Fraze.

Shuttle LIFE will fly in a flight-proven unit from Instrumentation Technology Associates, Inc. (ITA) as part of CREST-1 (Commercial Reusable Experiments for Science & Technology), manifested on STS-134 through NanoRacks LLC, working in partnership with NASA.

The Planetary Society:

The Planetary Society has inspired millions of people to explore other worlds and seek other life. Today, its international membership makes the non-governmental Planetary Society the largest space interest group in the world. Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman founded The Planetary Society in 1980. Bill Nye, a long time member of the Planetary Society's Board, is now the Executive Director.