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 Stone NAS/Newsmakers/Liason Agency |
| Orbiting 220 miles above the Earth, the International Space Station offers more than just a spectacular view. It also gives scientists the chance to conduct research in the near absence of gravity. The result could be everything from new plant varieties to important new synthetic materials.
Gravity, it turns out, is such a strong and pervasive force that it masks many interesting physical properties, including those related to combustion. In the space station, where gravity has only one-millionth the strength it has on Earth, hot gases do not rise, so flames are spherical and stable--and thus easier to study. Such flames can be used to create novel "combustion-synthesized" materials. One such material is a ceramic that could serve as an artificial bone. Powders are mixed and ignited to make the material, which is much more uniform when made in microgravity than when made on Earth. Researchers have also found that a rose is a rose is a rose--except when it's grown in space. A rose carried aboard a 1998 shuttle flight had a different scent than roses grown on Earth. That heavenly fragrance was later synthesized on Earth and has already been used in a commercial perfume. |