NASA News  
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration

John F. Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899
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_____________________________	
KSC Contact: George Diller

For Release: 	April 10, 2000

 KSC Release No. 31 - 00

MISSION TO AMERICA'S REMARKABLE STUDENTS (MARS) SET FOR FLIGHT ON STS-101

	The next flight of the Space Shuttle will help plant seeds
of knowledge in young minds by carrying plant seeds into space.

	The manifest for STS-101 includes a Getaway Special
Canister, or "gascan," a special container designed to carry small,
autonomous payloads. The container will transport the MARS ("Mission to
America's Remarkable Students") Payload, which consists of 20 tubes filled
with materials chosen by schools from the United States and Canada.

	"The idea was that the schools would have the freedom to pick
whatever Space Life Sciences experiment they wanted, as long as it fit
inside the constraints of the tube and our safety experts agreed it was
safe to fly," said Dennis Chamberland of the Kennedy Space Center
Biomedical Office.

	The MARS experiment arose after Goddard Spaceflight Center's
Small Shuttle Payloads office notified the KSC office of an opportunity to
fly a Getaway Special experiment on the Space Shuttle. Following approval
from NASA Headquarters for the project, each school was invited to design
a payload that dealt specifically with Space Life Sciences.

	The 20 schools - ranging from elementary to high school - worked
independently on their projects. Most of them decided to fill their
tubes with seeds, though the types vary widely and include sunflower,
watermelon, loquat, radish, green bean, weeping sand palm, daisy, soy
bean, turnip and poppy. Other materials also were placed into the tubes:
freeze-dried bacteria, freeze-dried brine shrimp, plastic samples, soil,
and yeast.

	The plastic tubes, each approximately the size of a portable
coffee container, were loaded and carefully sealed in a clean environment
at Kennedy Space Center. Technicians then fitted the tubes into the
"gascan" cylinder, which was bolted to an interior wall of the Space
Shuttle Atlantis' payload bay. MARS will fly as a passive payload, one
that is not manipulated during flight and doesn't have any automatic
functions.

	Following nearly 10 days in space aboard Atlantis, the tubes
will be removed from their canister in a controlled environment at KSC's
Orbiter Processing Facility and returned to the respective schools.
Supervising teachers will then use the materials for classroom
investigations and projects. STS-101, the third mission to the
International Space Station, is scheduled to launch April 24 at KSC.

	Eight of the other participating schools are from Central Florida:
Suntree Elementary and Longleaf Elementary (Melbourne), Cocoa Beach
Christian School, Golfview Elementary (Rockledge), Oak Park Elementary
(Titusville), Teague Middle School (Altamonte Springs), Southwest Junior
High (Palm Bay) and Brevard Homeschool Co-Op (Cocoa). The remainder
include schools from Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, Michigan, California and
Canada.


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