Columbia Blasts Off on Longest Shuttle Mission : Space: Tests on weightlessness will be conducted around the clock on 13-day flight.
Columbia, the oldest space shuttle, blasted off Thursday on the longest shuttle mission to date to conduct the most extensive research ever undertaken on how humans, plants and materials react to weightless conditions.
With rain clouds hovering a few miles west of Launch Pad 39A, Columbia rose steadily through overcast skies to begin a 13-day mission during which scientific experiments will be conducted around the clock in what officials are calling the first “microgravity lab.”
Working staggered 12-hour shifts to take advantage of every hour aloft, the seven-member crew will conduct 31 experiments in their pressurized laboratory in Columbia’s cargo bay. The tests will range from manufacturing crystals and polymers to determining the behavior of weightless fluids.
Robert Rhome, director of microgravity science for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said that the flight will presage “the kinds of things we hope to do with space station Freedom at the end of this decade.” Freedom is a planned permanent station in space.
The crew includes two women--Bonnie Dunbar, 43, of Sunnyside, Wash., who as payload commander will supervise all experiments, and Ellen Baker, 39, a physician specializing in space medicine who will study the crew’s reaction to zero gravity during the mission.
The commander, Dick Richards, 45, is a Navy captain making his third space flight.
Noting that the seven astronauts “will be cooped up together in an environment the size of a house trailer,” Brewster Shaw, deputy director of the shuttle program told reporters: “We’ll find out whether these kids really like each other.”
When laughter died down, Shaw added: “Actually they’ll be so busy with experiments they won’t have time to get mad at one another.”
No space walks or activities outside the orbiter are contemplated--”unless we have some unexpected trouble,” he said.
Columbia, which is making its 12th space flight, recently underwent a six-month, $120-million modification program at Rockwell International in Palmdale, Calif., to allow for extended missions of as many as 16 days. It now has additional power and water facilities, more storage space with extra mid-deck lockers and additional nitrogen tanks to improve the atmosphere in the cabin, where crew members will work in short-sleeve shirts rather than bulky space suits.
This flight, scheduled for two more days than the shuttle record set in 1990, will end next month with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., as have most of the 47 previous shuttle missions.
NASA’s all-time record, 84 days in space, belongs to the third and final Skylab mission in 1973-74.
Columbia’s 23-foot-long laboratory, known as Spacelab, contains a series of racks that hold individual furnaces for growing crystals, facilities for studying the properties of fluids in space and for doing combustion research as well as computers and other equipment needed for the tests.
Four experiments will result in crystals grown from different materials, including cadmium and mercury zinc telluride. Such crystals are used in infrared detectors found in advanced medical equipment as well as night-vision goggles and some telescopes.
Officials said that experiments with protein crystals ultimately may help scientists develop foods that have improved nutritional value.
Other experiments will investigate long-term plant growth in space, known as astroculture.
