The International Space Station is not only a pioneering outpost in low-Earth orbit, it’s also an out-of-this-world science lab where scientific experiments are conducted by astronauts every day. “One of the main things we perform on the ISS is science,” explains astronaut Dr. Serena Aunon-Chancellor. “In fact, probably 70 to 80 percent of our day is performing scientific experiments.”
In Orbiting Laboratory, the first episode of NASA Explorers‘ fourth season, astronauts Aunon-Chancellor and Christina Koch talk about the interplay of science in microgravity on the International Space Station.
From Associate Program Scientist Pete Hasbrook:
…probably one of the most pervasive uses of the ISS is just the microgravity environment. The things that we do inside the ISS to be able to do your experiment in space without gravity which we’ve all lived with forever here on the ground which we live with every day and we don’t even realize how it governs so many things that happen around us.
If you take gravity away now some of the small phenomena, some of the small processes and forces start to come out and you can see them and you can see the behaviors of your experiment happening differently in space and in microgravity than you would on the ground.
Watch the entire season, almost an hour of videos, here.
Then watch these microgravity videos:
• How do plants grow in space?
• Honey in Space
• Cooking in Space with ESA Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti
• Adding color and fizz to floating water bubbles in microgravity
• Zero Gravity 360° + Weightless Water Experiments
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