Understanding life on Earth from a lab in space
Space science research opportunities are growing through open solicitation aboard the International Space Station, which currently hosts hundreds of experiments for this next operational crew.
The ISS National Lab was created to offer a wide range of scientific experimentation, STEM education opportunities and technology research from the unique vantage point on the orbiting lab.
Ryan Reeves, director of science and technology at the ISS National Laboratory, said the experiments focus on improving life on Earth.
“We want to take advantage of the opportunity up there for research that can't be done anywhere else,” Reeves said. “We're looking to see is it, is the use of the ISS justified? Are you trying to take advantage of one of those, those three areas, the microgravity environment, the space environment, or the vantage point? Are you looking to push technology areas forward? You know, are you either looking to advance your own technology or look at new discoveries, and is it going to have an impact for life here on Earth?”
This month, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 docked at the ISS with two empty seats to return Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth following the mission. Reeves said that in addition to the return mission, both Wilmore and Williams are able to help with a backlog of experiments.
Experiments developed by commercial service providers are typically well contained within their hardware when launched to the ISS, Reeves said. Most experiments conducted by the crew are self-automated, typically requiring tasks such as loading cartridges and placing hardware in freezers, optimizing the allotted crew and mission time.
Several of the experiments and investigations aboard the ISS are sponsored and funded by the National Science Foundation, ranging from muscle atrophy, therapeutic treatments for neurogenerative diseases and crystallizing new drug formulations.
Reeves said the unique space environment allows for unique crystallization for drug developments that wouldn’t ordinarily occur on Earth’s dynamic environment.
“Researchers have been able to get larger crystals in space,” Reeves said. “They've been able to crystallize some proteins that haven't been able to and what that's been able to allow them to do is, once we're able to crystallize certain proteins, now we can better characterize them, so we can then develop new drugs that can target the various aspects of that neutralize those and then better treat diseases.”
The ISS National Lab is including young minds in scientific endeavors as well, by sending a cutting-edge experiment on radiation and cells developed by a recent high school graduate to be tested by Crew-9.
“Potentially, you know, we can learn from that and better shield our future astronauts in in in treating radiation and making sure that they're safe, which will be really important as the crew goes beyond the protections of low Earth orbit and goes to the moon and goes to Mars and beyond in the future,” Reeves said.
Sustaining support for a “second genesis”
NASA’s Europa Clipper lifted off for its long-awaited journey to explore Jupiter’s Ocean moon which may harbor the characteristics necessary to support life.
Hitching a ride aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the spacecraft launched from launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center Monday at 12:06 p.m. EDT. The mission aims to better understand potential life in our solar system and beyond through exploration of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
Casey Drier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, said that despite Europa being one of the best locations for a ‘second genesis’ of life, it’s important to understand that these types of missions don’t often happen.
Drier said that missions aren’t funded purely by an empty sphere of what is the best science, but rather in concert with political interests and programmatic interest decided by NASA’s democracy.
“That's what made this, I think, profoundly unique, and at the time, so frustrating, because we have a process to highlight scientific priorities, and not every science mission that's really important has to be publicly exciting, right?” Drier said. “That's not an expectation we should have. But when they do align, when the public does innately become excited about something as profound as discovering life or understanding an ocean world, that should maybe weigh something right?”
While the first flyby of Europa by Voyager 2 in 1979 and Galileo in the 1980s, Drier said the interest in exploration wasn’t prioritized until the late 90s and on. After years of being placed on the backburner due to other missions and the recession, it took several more years for NASA to pursue Europa Clipper’s mission. Still, it was met with mixed support.
“We're in a cyclical period right now. It feels very familiar to 10 years ago when we were trying to get Europa, particularly for planetary exploration at NASA, where we're struggling to move Mars sample return forward, that effort has stymied,” Drier said. “There is a mission recommended to explore Uranus, a big orbiter mission that would be fantastic, that has no feasible way to get in the budget at least as projected right now. Budgets are very difficult for all of those right now, and even the smaller missions you know, like going to Venus, those are really struggling to get started.”
Missions like Europa Clipper rely on funding from the federal government. There are fundamental mismatches between long mission timelines and short terms of political offices, which Drier said exacerbates challenges surrounding missions like Europa Clipper getting off the ground. Despite this, Europa Clipper reshaped its mission to make an executable plan that could garner public support and hope for future missions, Drier said.
“It was really tough at the time,” Drier said. “So just to appreciate that this did change, that the system worked — and it doesn't change quickly, it doesn't happen fast —but sustained political pressure that has aligned support from scientific community and a path to success that can work and that can get us to these amazing things. Who knows what we're going to find at Europa, but when those images come down of this incredible surface, this alien world, this ocean world, presenting itself to humanity for the first time that should give us all this type of optimism. It's like, wow. What else can we do?”
