barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) (04/05/84)
I read about a real strange experiment going up on 41C, which lifts off this Friday (or this past Friday for many of you suffering from Usenet jet lag). They are sending up 13 million tomatoe seeds (13 MILLION!). They are going to put them in orbit, presumably in some kind of hydroponic apparatus, and leave them there, to be picked up about ten months from now by another shuttle mission. Boy, we're starting to put some strange stuff in orbit these days. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
alb@alice.UUCP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) (04/05/84)
The experiment Barry mentions is part of the Long Duration Exposure Facility, a palet of stuff that will be injected into LEO on 41C and picked up by a shuttle mission next year. The experiments are designed to measure how different substances hold up against the cosmic rays and other neat things out there.
philb@shark.UUCP (Phil Biehl) (04/06/84)
The 13 million tomatoe seeds experiment is sponsored by Park Seed and will NOT attempt to grow these seeds while in the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). The seeds will be distributed to schools around the country to allow schoolchildren to experiment with the space exposed seeds once they have been retrieved by the orbiter. Attack of the Killer Toamtoes anyone?? Phil Biehl Tektronix, Inc.