IML-2 Public Affairs Status Report #07 6:00 p.m. CDT, July 11, 1994 3/6:17 MET Spacelab Mission Operations Control Marshall Space Flight Center The IML-2 payload crew and science teams on the ground kept up a solid pace of experiment activities today. Early this morning, Mission Specialist Don Thomas set up a video camera to give Principal Investigator Dr. Ken-ichi Ijiri of the University of Tokyo his first look at his Medaka fish in Japan's Animal Aquatic Experiment Unit. Scientists watched from Spacelab control as the four transparent, guppie-sized fish swam in random directions, rather than swimming in loops as fish have done on previous experiments Dr. Ijiri chose these particular male and female fish because they did not "loop" during brief exposures to low gravity on parabolic airplane flights. At one point during the live video, two of the fish exhibited mating behavior. Later, Payload Specialist Chiaki Mukai adjusted the focus for a close-up view of eggs the Medaka had spawned thus far in the mission. Scientists want to find out if fish can live and reproduce normally in space. If so, they could be an important part of future ecological life support systems to provide food for space travelers. When he made his daily height measurement for Canada's Spinal Changes in Microgravity experiment this morning, Payload Commander Rick Hieb quipped, "I seem to have grown about an inch or so, so I am now too tall to fly in space!" (The maximum height allowable for an astronaut is six feet, four inches, or 193 cm.) The experiment studies the height increase astronauts experience away from gravity to determine how it relates to back pain and whether it changes the function of the nerves or cardiovascular system. Mukai and Hieb spent most of their afternoon performing a group of Spinal Changes in Microgravity experiments. In a procedure often used to monitor nerve function during back surgery on Earth, small electronic pulses were applied to their ankles, while electrodes on their heads sensed how long the signals took to reach their brains. They squeezed a rubber ball for three minutes to see if their blood pressure increased to the same degree it does on Earth during the isometric exercise. An electrocardiograph made heart measurements during a breathing exercise to evaluate the nerves that control heart rate. Later this evening, Hieb and Mukai will make stereo photographs of their backs to get very accurate height measurements, plot the shapes of their spines, and determine how freely they can move. Today's suite of tests, along with repetitions near the middle and end of the mission, will be compared with an extensive set of pre-flight measurements. Principal Investigator Dr. John Ledsome of the University of British Columbia said, "This mission will be the first one to collect the accurate and detailed information necessary to better understand what happens to the spine and nervous system, and why astronauts experience back pain, when they go into space." Hieb used some of the time allotted for Spinal Changes in Microgravity ultrasound imaging to reset electronic boards in the Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Program's echocardiograph unit. The unit is now functioning normally, so it will be available to make ultrasound measurements in upcoming Lower Body Negative Pressure and Spinal Changes in Microgravity operations. This morning, ground controllers for the TEMPUS electromagnetic containerless processing facility carefully withdrew a metal sample, which had stuck to its containment cage, from the experiment chamber. They were delighted when Hieb reported the metal had not adhered to the facility's heater coils. The TEMPUS team is working closely with the crew and with their support group at the European Space Agency's Microgravity User Support Center in Cologne, Germany, to refine methods for holding their levitated samples in the center of the experiment cage. "Although operations are giving us trouble, the scientific results so far have been extraordinary," said TEMPUS Project Scientist Dr. Ivan Egry. "With our gold sample, we obtained undercooling of over 200 degrees [around 400 degrees Fahrenheit], which has never been done before. We proved a method proposed by Dr. Hans Fecht to measure the specific heat of a liquid metal. This could not have been accomplished on Earth. We are looking forward to more exciting days and more results." This afternoon, the team studied a nickel- silicon alloy with unusual glass-forming properties. Payload crew members selected samples and adjusted views for the slime mold experiment in the NIZEMI Slow-Rotating Microscope Centrifuge. The experiment looks at how the single-cell organism reacts to various levels of gravity. The Critical Point Facility team completed a 13-1/2 hour run of Dr. Teun Michels' experiment to study heat transport in a fluid near its critical point, then began the second of four planned runs. Tonight, Mukai will work with a Thermoelectric Incubator experiment that investigates the growth and differentiation of bone-derived cells, and Thomas will conduct the mission's second Vibration Isolation Box experiment. More Biorack, NIZEMI and TEMPUS operations also are scheduled. NASA issues four status reports daily on STS-65/IML-2 activities: science operations reports from Spacelab Mission Operations Control in Huntsville at approximately 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., and orbiter operations reports from Mission Control in Houston at approximately 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.