Aflame artwork

Fire acts differently in space than on Earth. 

Sandra Olson, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Glenn Research Center, demonstrates just how differently in her art. 

This artwork is comprised of multiple overlays of three separate microgravity flame images. 

Each image is of flame spread over cellulose paper in a spacecraft ventilation flow in microgravity. 

The different colours represent different chemical reactions within the flame. The blue areas are caused by chemiluminescence (light produced by a chemical reaction.) 

The white, yellow and orange regions are due to glowing soot within the flame zone.

Microgravity combustion research at Glenn not only provides insights into spacecraft fire safety, but it has also been used to create award-winning art images. 

This image won first place in the 2011 Combustion Art Competition, held at the 7th U.S. National Combustion Meeting.

Image Credit: NASA

SpaceX Capsule: AMES Big Science for International Space Station

The NanoRacks Plate Reader, shown here, will enable in orbit analysis of research samples for certain studies aboard the International Space Station. 

CREDIT: NASA

The International Space Station is now home to more than 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of supplies delivered by an unmanned, privately built space capsule that reached the orbiting science laboratory on Sunday (March 3).

Among the goods SpaceX's Dragon capsule transported to the station were science experiments primed and ready for the six international residents of the space station.

See our previous Post on the SpaceX AMES experiment container /payload

"Dragon is scheduled to return to Earth on March 25, bringing home nearly double the amount of supplies it brought up, about 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms)," NASA officials said in a statement.

"Returning investigation samples will demonstrate how life in microgravity affects the growth of plant seedlings, changes to the human body, the behavior of semiconductors and detergents, and more."

Some of the experiments will only stay on board for three weeks, making a round trip back to Earth with Dragon when the capsule detaches from the station.

One of those experiments involves thale cress, a plant used in many experiments because of its small, relatively easy-to-map genome.

Scientists affiliated with NASA and the European Space Agency sent up one experiment called "Seedling Growth-1," designed to investigate how well plants grow amid stresses such as low oxygen.

"The experiment will study how plants adapt to micro- and low-gravity environments," NASA officials wrote in a statement.

"Researchers hope to determine the ability of vegetation to provide a complete, sustainable, dependable and economical means for human life-support in space."



Beyond helping scientists learn how to grow food in space, the research might contribute to better agricultural practices back on Earth.

Understanding how these plants react to a stressful environment could lend insight into how farmers could mitigate those taxing situations back on the planet's surface.

Some of the experiments sent to the International Space Station will play a role in education, as well.

The Experiment Container with Plant Seedling Seed Cassettes (seedlings, inset lower right) is an example of the samples returning aboard the SpaceX Dragon vehicle for ground analysis.

CREDIT: NASA

"Students from several California schools developed investigations to study bacteria, iron corrosion, battery performance and carbon dioxide levels aboard the station, all of which will be delivered by Dragon," NASA officials wrote in a statement.

Personal product manufacturer Procter & Gamble sent up another experiment that will study how to better preserve toothpaste, gels and creams.

NASA 16th NEEMO Expedition

The 16th NEEMO expedition will commence June 11, 2012. NEEMO, or NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, is an aquatic program that uses the under water base Aquarius to test technologies for use in space.

“Water is a nice way to free your body and get to explore a different way of movement. Since we’re so stuck with walking here on Earth, it’s nice to float around, flip around — just like in space,” says mission commander Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburgher.

Water provides a reasonable analogy for the space environment since buoyancy mimics reduced gravity in some respects.

NEEMO crewmembers are known as aquanauts, although some have or will achieve astronaut status as well. The 16th expedition is led by Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburgher, a Space Shuttle veteran.

Timothy Peake, an up and coming ESA astronaut and Kimiya Yui a rising JAXA astronaut, will also join the crew, along with veteran aquanaut and Mars Rover principal investigator Steve Squyres.

The two week mission will work on how to take a sample from an asteroid. “If you just do something as simple as hit a rock with a hammer, you’re going to go flying off into space, so we’ve got to develop a whole new set of tricks and tools for operating on the surface of an asteroid,” says Squyres.

Past missions tested jetpacks, which did not work well for staying in one spot. The current crew will test miniature submarines. “Imagine this little submarine with a six-foot-long beam sticking off the front of it and an astronaut on the front of that like a hood ornament,” Squyres says.

Asteroids could be a NASA target for a manned mission beyond 2025, but they may have to play catch-up as more players become interested in asteroids as celestial targets.

JAXA already had a successful asteroid sample return mission with Hayabusa in 2010 and is working on a second one.

Microgravity experiments on the ISS: Takao Doi

Microgravity demonstrations are often done to share the excitement of space with the public and illustrate the properties of objects in free fall. In 2008, astronaut Takao Doi threw a boomerang to see whether it would return to its pitcher. It did, since boomerangs' looping paths result from uneven forces on the curved devices exerted by the air they travel through – not the influence of gravity.

Earlier in 2009, astronaut Koichi Wakata performed a series of tasks suggested by the public that included riding a flying carpet, folding clothes, and applying eye drops.

(Images: NASA/JAXA)