How Do We Do Research in Zero Gravity? We Asked a NASA Expert | NASA | YouTubeToText
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How do we do research in zero gravity?
We Asked a NASA Scientist.
Actually when astronauts do experiments
on the International Space Station,
for instance,
to look at the effect of the space
environment on organisms,
that environment
is actually technically called microgravity.
That is, things feel weightless,
but we're still under
the influence of Earth's gravity.
Now, the very microgravity
that we're trying to study up there
can make experiments
actually really kind of difficult
for a bunch of different reasons.
First of all, stuff floats.
So losing things in the ISS
is a very real possibility.
For example,
there was a set of tomatoes
that was harvested in 2022
put it in a bag and it floated away
and we couldn't find it for eight months.
So to prevent this kind of thing from happening,
we use a lot of different methods, such as
using enclosed experiment spaces like glove boxes and glove bags.
We use a lot of Velcro to stick stuff to.
Another issue is bubbles in liquids.
So, on Earth, bubbles float up,
in space they don't float up,
they'll interfere with optical measurements
or stop up your microfluidics.
So space experiment equipment often
includes contraptions for stopping
or blocking or trapping bubbles.
A third issue is convection.
So on Earth,
gravity drives a process of gas
mixing called convection
and that helps circulate air.
But without that in microgravity we worry about
some of our experimental organisms
and whether they're going to get the fresh air
that they need.
So we might do things like adding a fan to their habitat,
or if we can't, we'll take their habitat
and put it somewhere
where there might already be a fan on the ISS
or in a corridor
where we think there are going to be a lot of astronauts
moving around and circulating the air.
Yet another issue is the fact
that a lot of the laboratory instruments
we use on Earth are not designed for microgravity.
So to ensure that gravity doesn't
play a factor in how they work,
we might do experiments on the ground
where we turn them on their side or upside down,
or rotate them on a rotisserie
to make sure that they keep working.
So, as you can tell, for
every experiment that we do
on the International Space Station,
there's a whole team of scientists
on the ground that has spent years
developing the experiment design.
And so I guess the answer
to how we do research in microgravity is with a lot
of practice and preparation.
We Asked a NASA Scientist.
NASA. A NASA 360 Production.
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