THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 9, 1994 TAG: 9407090229
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF & WIRE REPORT
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Columbia soared into space today with an international crew and a wet, wiggly cargo - thousands of fish, newts and jellyfish handpicked for this science mission.
The 2,000-ton shuttle thundered off its oceanside pad at 12:43 p.m., right on time. It pierced two decks of clouds on its way into orbit and could be seen for more than two minutes over the Atlantic.
NASA has never flown so many kinds of aquatic animals at once, and the flight marks the second time the experiments of an Eastern Virginia Medical School biologist were carried aloft.
Columbia holds four Japanese Medaka fish, six goldfish, 126 larval-form jellyfish, four newts, 144 newt eggs, 340 Medaka eggs, 180 toad eggs and six toad testes to fertilize those eggs, 11,200 baby sea urchins and 500 flies. An equal number of animals will undergo identical experiments on the ground as a control group.
Dorothy B. Spangenberg, a developmental biologist at the medical school, is studying the effects of microgravity on the development of animals.
Her creatures are actually the larval forms of jellyfish called polyps and ephyrae. Between 12 to 14 ephyrae are contained in 1-inch-square, sealed containers developed for the space program.
In 1991 Spangenberg studied the effects of microgravity on 2,500 larval jellyfish launched with the shuttle. In space, the polyps divided and developed normally; 5,911 returned to Earth.
Spangenberg's team noted that jellyfish exposed to the weightlessness of space developed differently from a control group on Earth. The space-bound jellyfish developed pulsating abnormalities and changes in the tiny calcium crystals that help the animals orient themselves in the water.
After Friday's flight, Spangenberg and her team hope to identify the level of gravity where the changes occur.
Assisting Spangenberg are EVMS scientists Robert M. McCombs, associate dean for admissions and student affairs and professor of microbiology and immunology, and Frank A. Lattanzio Jr., assistant professor of pharmacology.
Also on board are experiments from Japanese biologists who want to see whether and how fish mate in weightlessness and what the offspring are like.
Researchers picked two male and two female Medaka that seem to get along and avoid the looping behavior exhibited by spacefaring fish in the past.
``If you are looping, can you mate? In a merry-go-round? It's crazy,'' said Japanese project scientist Shunji Nagaoka.
The goldfish will be exposed to light in brief flashes so researchers can see how the animals orient themselves in the absence of gravity. Five of the six goldfish had gravity-sensing organs removed from their inner ears.
Dr. Harry Holloway, head of NASA's life and microgravity sciences office, said the underwater findings should shed light on human development.
After all, he said, all of us ``in our mother's womb developed in an aquatic medium and in that aquatic medium we developed . . . a sense of up and down.''
Virtually all the animals will be killed for dissection soon after Columbia returns on July 22.
Six Americans and one Japanese - Dr. Chiaki Mukai, the first Japanese woman in space - are assigned to the flight. The U.S. crew members are commander Robert Cabana, pilot James Halsell Jr. and Richard Hieb, Leroy Chiao, Carl Walz and Donald Thomas. MEMO: Staff writer Tom Holden contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: AP
The space shuttle Columbia roared off its launch pad in Cape
Canaveral, Fla., at 12:43 p.m. Friday. For the second time,
experiments of an Eastern Virginia Medical School biologist were
carried into space.
by CNB