One Giant Leap for Squid-Kind: Why NASA Launched Tiny Sea Creatures Into Space
NASA launched dozens of baby Hawaiian bobtail squid into space for scientific research on how to further preserve astronauts’ health during long space missions.
About 128 of the tiny animals were sent as part of SpaceX’s 22nd resupply mission, which delivered thousands of pounds of cargo to the International Space Station.
University of Florida professor Jamie Foster is the lead scientist for the experiment and she’s also the principal investigator for a NASA research program called UMAMI, which stands for Understanding of Microgravity on Animal-Microbe Interactions.
According to UMAMI’s website, the primary goal of the experiment is to understand the “effects of spaceflight on the molecular and chemical interactions between beneficial microbes and their animal hosts.”
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