One of the most important things David does is make sure that experiments never jeopardize the health and safety of the space shuttle crewmembers. The primary safety concerns for biological experiments involve on of the ways in which we preserve the biological tissue. You noticed that the frogs looked alive, felt real, yet they were completely dead. Formaldehyde is a type of fixative that terminates the cellular growth without damaging the tissue. There are many other safety concerns, such as sharp edges, electrical shock, flamable materials, and the list goes on and on.
Astronaut safety is our number one concern.
Getting the experiment results is secondary. David is actually out here at Ames with us, but he has to catch a plane back to Florida and the Kennedy Space Center. As David wraps up the last few questions we have time for, I wanted to let those of you asking astronomy questions know that there will be a webcast on astronomy this Friday. In our class we read about that American civilian going up to the ISS on a Russian launch in April. Dave, i am not so sure that there will be an American civilian on board the International Space Station very soon.