Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 22, 1992 TAG: 9201220164
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
SHUTTLE TO HAUL SLIME, BUGS, SEEDS
NASA tucked boxes carrying billions of organisms - from single cells to slime mold - into the Discovery on Tuesday as the countdown ticked toward the year's first space shuttle flight.The inventory for today's launch includes 72 million roundworms, 32 million mouse bone cells and 3 billion yeast cells, plus 180 oat seedlings, 96 wheat seedlings and 360 oat seeds and 120 wheat seeds to be planted by the seven astronauts in orbit.
Discovery also will carry stick insects, fruit flies, frog eggs and sperm, slime mold, lentil roots, bacteria and human blood cells.
"It is a mission in which we are going to use the microgravity environment of space to develop new understandings of materials and life sciences that will benefit all of us here on Earth," said Lennard Fisk, NASA's chief scientist.
Unseasonably cold weather was the launch team's sole concern. Low temperatures could cause dangerous slivers of ice to form on the shuttle's external fuel tank.
Forecasters said Tuesday there was a 70 percent chance the weather would cooperate for the scheduled 8:53 a.m. liftoff.
Launch director Bob Sieck said the flight probably would be delayed if the temperature dips below 47 degrees and the wind falls beneath 6 mph for a half-hour or more after liquid oxygen and hydrogen are pumped into the external tank. An overnight low of 50 was expected; the temperature at liftoff time was predicted at 54.
NASA established strict launch criteria after Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The temperature that morning - six years ago next Tuesday - was 36 degrees. Investigators blamed the cold for the failure of an O-ring seal in a joint in one of the solid rocket boosters.
The booster joints now have heaters.
NASA safely has launched 19 times since the explosion. The coldest liftoff during that period was 53 degrees in January 1990.
Discovery's seven-day journey - shuttle flight No. 45 - is the most internationally diverse mission ever undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It makes use of the European-built Spacelab, a pressurized laboratory module in the cargo bay.
Two of the seven astronauts are foreign. Neurologist Roberta Bondar will be the second Canadian, and the first Canadian woman, to fly in space. German physicist Ulf Merbold will be making his second shuttle trip.
About 225 scientists from 14 countries are participating in the mission. Each of the international partners in NASA's planned space station is represented.
"We are now building relations and cooperation that signify, I think, the international character of the future of space exploration," said Frederik Engstroem, a European Space Agency director.
The astronauts will split 12-hour work shifts in orbit so experiments can be conducted non-stop, including a battery of medical tests, some of them dizzying.
Researchers hope to learn more about space motion sickness and back pain, common ailments among astronauts in orbit. Doctors also want to know whether exercise helps astronauts adapt better to gravity at the end of a flight.