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Overview of Science Experiments

STS-78 was a Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) Mission. The crew of seven astronauts carried out life and microgravity science experiments in the unique environment of the Spacelab laboratory, located in Columbia's cargo bay.

The international nature of this mission featured prominently. Spacelab itself was designed and built by the European Space Agency (ESA). Scientists from 10 countries and five international space agencies (NASA, ESA, and the Canadian (CSA), Italian (ASI) and French (CNES) space agencies) have developed 43 experiments to study the effects of gravity on the human body, on the development of plants and animals, on the processing of protein crystals and metallic alloys, and on fluid behaviour. The STS-78 crew members represented the United States, Canada (Bob Thirsk) and France (Jean-Jacques Favier).

All seven astronauts were subjects and researchers for the life science investigations, gathering samples and performing measurements on themselves and each other for the human physiology investigations. Physiological data gathered from each astronaut during the three months before flight provided a baseline with which flight data were compared. Post-flight testing assessed the body's readjustment to Earth's gravity.

The STS-78 microgravity science experiments involved basic fluid physics investigation, advanced semiconductor and metal alloy materials processing and medical research in protein crystal growth. These were conducted primarily through telescience, a mode of operation where scientists on the ground remotely command experiments in orbit. During the mission, members of the research team conducted ground studies, monitored experiments and received data at remote sites in the U.S., Belgium, France and Italy. Crew involvement was complementary -- they checked out and activated equipment once on orbit and installed and removed samples. This mission was designed to ressemble a space station mission where many of the scientific experiments are performed through telescience from remote stations, like the ones listed above.

This LMS mission sought answers to some of these questions and built on and continued to expand the foundation of scientific research established during the past decade. The crew objective of the mission was twofold:

To study the effects of microgravity on the physiology, development and behaviour of living systems;

To study the processing of materials, to study fluid physics, and to grow protein crystals in a reduced-gravity environment.