Astronomy is thousands of years old, and began when the first human stared out into space.
Unlike these two science areas, microgravity science is in its infancy. Born of the space age, the first space experiments in microgravity science were carried out only 30 years ago. Our 16 years of research in microgravity science on the space shuttle is therefore just a first step in growing a vibrant and exciting science to generate new knowledge. This third part of our mission at NASA is microgravity science. We use the unique environment of space, with its near-absence of the effects of gravity, to perform science research that cannot be done anywhere else.