Shuttle Crew Prepares for Return
Columbia’s astronauts turned off their laboratory instruments Tuesday and got ready to return to Earth after 13 days in space.
The shuttle was scheduled to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California at 6:08 a.m. PDT today.
The seven astronauts spent their last full day in orbit marveling over their crystal handiwork--crystals grow bigger and better in weightlessness than on Earth--conducting more fluid tests and exercising.
Researchers hope to use the space-grown protein crystals to design better drugs for fighting AIDS, cancer, diabetes and other illnesses.
Astronaut Bonnie Dunbar, who has now spent more time in space than any other woman, endured her last depressurization session to ease her body’s return to gravity. For about an hour, she floated in a vacuum sack that forced blood from her head and chest, where it gathers in weightlessness, into her legs.
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