unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/12/89)
NASA: U.S.-U.S.S.R. LIFE SCIENCE INVESTIGATIONS TO BE LAUNCHED
More than 85 NASA-sponsored researchers from 19 states and three
foreign countries are participating in 29 cooperative
investigations on a Cosmos biosatellite mission to be launched by
the Soviet Union on September 8, 1989.
The Cosmos biosatellite is an unpiloted recoverable spacecraft
that accommodates plant and animal experiments. Cooperative
investigations on the 14-day Cosmos '89 mission will address
questions related to the biomedical effects of prolonged space
flight. Biological specimens on the mission include rhesus
monkeys, rats, fish, fish eggs, newts, drosophila, beetles,
seeds, unicellular organisms and planaria. Investigations cover
bone and muscle alterations, circadian rhythms and
thermoregulation, neurophysiology, radiation biology and
gravitational biology.
Nearly 3,000 biological samples from the Cosmos '89 mission's
flight and control groups of subjects will be returned to
laboratories across the United States for analysis. Many of the
cooperative U.S.-Soviet investigations on this mission will
expand upon investigations flown on previous Cosmos missions.
The last Soviet biosatellite mission, Cosmos 1887, launched on
September 29, 1987, was a 13-day mission that involved 60 U.S.
investigators in cooperative experiments. Results of these
investigations were announced at a science symposium in Moscow in
late 1988. Data were obtained on radiation dosimetry; changes in
rodent bone, muscle, and organs; and bone tissue calcium loss in
primates.
The Cosmos '89 mission is the seventh Soviet biosatellite
mission in which NASA has participated. The U.S.S.R. also has
invited the United States to participate in cooperative
investigations on a 1992 Cosmos mission. A NASA Research
Announcement released in June 1988 solicited proposals for
participation in the 1989 and 1992 Cosmos missions.
NASA's space medicine and biology program has benefited from
scientific cooperation with the U.S.S.R. on Cosmos missions
through the opportunity to conduct experiments with animal
subjects on the effects of long-duration flights.
U.S. participation in Cosmos investigations is currently
coordinated by the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Joint Working Group on Space
Biology and Medicine, established under the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space
Science Cooperation Agreement signed in April 1987.
* Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)
---
Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information
patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange
-=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-