WIKIMIEDIA COMMONS, RAS67
Today (July 8) at 11:26 a.m. EST, the Atlantis space shuttle is scheduled for the last-ever NASA shuttle launch, ending a program that sent five shuttles on 134 missions to space. This final mission will last 13 days, and, as usual, it will carry an astonishing array of organisms and equipment all in the name of scientific discovery. Here are a few.
Nearly half a million tomato seeds will spend the two weeks in space and, upon their return, be distributed to 10,000 Canadian classrooms where the students will measure germination success, growth rate, and overall health of the tomato plants after prolonged exposure to space.
NASA prefers to call it the Forward Osmosis Bag (FOB) system, but the purpose of this IV-like bag filled ...