NASA is sending a butterfly habitat containing monarch and painted lady adults and larvae to the International Space Station.
The space-traveling insects are part of a project dubbed "Butterflies in Space." Once they arrive at the ISS, K-12 students across America will monitor the CU-Boulder butterfly experiment, studying the effects space travel has on the bugs at the ISS compared to examples reared in their own classrooms.
According to Science Daily, the butterfly payload was designed by BioServe Space Technologies in the University of Colorado at Boulder's aerospace engineering department. The habitat will contain monarch butterflies and painted lady butterfly larvae with enough nectar and other food to support them as they develop.
ScienceDaily cites BioServe Payload Mission Manager Stefanie Countryman as saying the painted lady butterfly larvae will be six days old and the monarch butterflies will be about 10 days old at launch. Transferred from Atlantis to the ISS about two days later, it will take the butterfly larvae about five days to pupate and form a cocoon, and another seven to 10 days to emerge.
Participating classrooms across the country have been provided with kits containing butterfly larvae. Students will monitor the growth rates, feeding, pupation and the emergence of the butterflies, comparing what they see in their own classroom to what they're seeing in the images from the ISS. Images of the ISS habitat will be taken every 15 minutes, downlinked daily and uploaded to the web for students to see.
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I think you mean "wasting." This is exactly why the government is spending this money: to encourage education. Maybe if cool learning experiences like this interest kids more in school and learning, we'll have fewer hopelessly ignorant people in the world.
or the stay puft marshmallow man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnPGDWD_oLE
Is there a real purpose for this?
Nice to know how the government is waisting our money...
hey any federal employee will tell you that there are a lot better ways to waste money. just this past week our shop bought a part for a 30 year old radio for 3500 bucks when a brand new radio costs 1800 bucks. welcome to the world of WTF!!!!
Seriously, for now it such trivial data that the NASA is wasting money on this.
I think you mean "wasting." This is exactly why the government is spending this money: to encourage education. Maybe if cool learning experiences like this interest kids more in school and learning, we'll have fewer hopelessly ignorant people in the world.
Now, that's a verb you don't come across too often ...
They should just give it up. We're never gonna live in space.
Star Trek is a TV show. There are no Vulcans.
You sir, are a giant arse. They probably didn't send butterflies on their own shuttle, it was probably a side project on a already schedueled mission. That's how they do these things.
Star Trek is NOT a TV show, its real. And the Vulcans, are going to mind-meld you and make you think you're a giant arse. Which you are.
I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!
Too similar to us I guess, nothing to see but some disorientation and muscle deterioration.