IML-2 Public Affairs Status Report #08
6:00 a.m. CDT, July 12, 1994
3/18:13 MET
Spacelab Mission Operations Control
Marshall Space Flight Center
 
    The crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia were busy in the
Spacelab module last night, conducting one experiment after another in support
of the second International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-2) mission.
 
    Mission Specialist Don Thomas removed the Japanese newt tank from the
Aquatic Animal Experiment Unit and reported the first case of a newt egg to
hatch in space.  He also moved the tank closer to the onboard camera to give
researchers on the ground a good look at the Japanese red-bellied newts.
Thomas reported that the adult newts continued to appear healthy and active.
 
    Payload Commander Rick Hieb and Payload Specialist Chiaki Mukai had
photographs taken of the contours of their spines, documenting the height and
range of motion of their vertical columns while in orbit to learn more about
back pain often experienced by astronauts during spaceflight.
 
    Hieb brought the male Drosophila (fruit flies) out of the Biorack facility
to observe their behavior and movement.  Previous experiments have shown that
the aging process of adult fruit flies is accelerated in microgravity.  Because
the life span of a fruit fly is relatively short, almost their entire aging
process will be studied during this mission.  The results of this investigation
could be useful in studying the factors which influence aging in humans.
 
    Mukai took photographs of bone cells from the back legs of young adult
rodents to help scientists understand more about what causes osteoporosis, the
loss of bone calcium.  In addition to benefiting future space crews, this
information could help the medical community find ways to prevent bone disease
and deterioration on Earth.
 
    Dr.  Dorothy Spangenberg at the Spacelab Mission Operations Control center
in Huntsville, Ala., guided Mission Specialist Leroy Chiao through steps to
adjust the lighting before he video taped her onboard experiment involving
jellyfish.  This investigation is being conducted in the Slow Rotating
Centrifuge Microscope, called NIZEMI (the acronym for its German name) which
allows the jellyfish to experience various levels of gravity.  Information
gathered during and after the mission will help scientists better understand
the effects of microgravity on the developmental processes of animals and the
role that gravity plays in behavior and development of organisms on Earth.
 
    Chiao loaded sample containers of the slime mold Physarum polycephalum into
the NIZEMI facility and focused the microscope before beginning an observation
cycle, which involved exposing the slime mold to different levels of gravity.
This investigation is designed to help scientists such as Principal
Investigator Dr. Ingrid Block of Cologne, Germany, understand how and when a
unique form of single-cell organism senses gravity.
 
    Chiao and Thomas completed the scheduled activities for two experiments in
the European Space Agency's Biorack facility.  Both of these experiments, which
began shortly after Spacelab activation, involve cells from the human immune
system.  Principal Investigator Dr. Augusto Cogoli has been conducting
identical investigations of his experiments at the Kennedy Space Center in
Florida. He will analyze both ground- and space-derived information after
landing to learn about how human immune cells recognize and respond to foreign
substances that enter the body and whether or not lymphocytes need to attach
themselves to another object in order to grow and multiply normally.
 
        "We have just had the first grand success for the TEMPUS facility,"
Bill Hofmeister of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said at one point
overnight.  Co-investigator Hofmeister and Principal Investigator Dr. Robert
Bayuzick were extremely pleased as they watched their sample of zirconium-
nickel heat to around 2280 degrees Fahrenheit (1250 degrees Celsius) in the
Electromagnetic Containerless Processing Facility called TEMPUS (the acronym
for its German name)
 
    Thomas fine-tuned the TEMPUS facility during an air-to-ground conversation
with facility team member Angelika Diefenbach. Later, an investigation began in
TEMPUS which allowed three separate science teams to study different aspects of
heating, levitating and undercooling a sample of metallic glass, zirconium-
nickel.  Undercooling is the process where the melted material freezes at a
temperature substantially below where it normally would, such as when the
liquid is in a container.
 
    Investigators from the California Institute of Technology examined this
process to determine the specific amount of heat necessary to change its
temperature.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigators measured the
viscosity, internal friction, and surface tension of the melted alloy.  Surface
tension is the force that keeps liquid together in a compact drop.  The science
team from Vanderbilt University looked at how the metal changed during the
nucleation, the point at which solidification began.
 
    Another materials science experiment continued in the European Space
Agency's Critical Point Facility. Video from the Spacelab provided Dr. Antonius
Michels of the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, with a good view of
his sulfur hexafluoride fluid reaching its critical point, the condition where
a liquid behaves as both a liquid and a gas.  Knowledge gained from this type
of space-based investigation will help scientists understand more about
fundamental fluid physics.
 
    During the next 12 hours, the STS-65 crew will continue life sciences
experiments in the Biorack and NIZEMI facility.  Also, materials science
investigations in the TEMPUS facility will continue, and the Bubble, Drop and
Particle Unit facility will be activated for its first IML-2 operation.
 
NASA issues four status reports daily on STS-65/IML-2 activities: science
operations reports from Spacelab Mission Operations Control in Huntsville at
approximately 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., and orbiter operations reports from Mission
Control in Houston at approximately 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.