[12]

THE 16^TH ANNUAL SPACEFLIGHT AND LIFE SCIENCES TRAINING PROGRAM AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA.   S. Potter¹, Dr. Walter Hill⁴, P. Currier², G. Koerner³, J. Rebmann³, Dr. Al Schlundt⁴, ¹NASA, Kennedy Space Center (KSC), ²The Bionetics Corporation, ³Dynamac Corporation, ⁴Tuskegee University, College of Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Sciences.

The six-week Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program (SLSTP) teaches students how to successfully design and conduct biological research and operations in space, and how to assess the environmental impacts of a launch site. Students gain hands-on research and team experience both in the laboratory and in the field.

Thirty students (including two from the Canadian Space Agency) explored current research methods and opportunities in space life sciences with NASA researchers and engineers that are developing flight and ground-based experiments. The students learned biological, hardware, and management operations for life science payloads on the shuttle and International Space Station. Other hands-on studies included various experiments in Advanced Life Support bioregenerative life support, and ecological studies that assist in preserving the 147,000 acres of wetlands habitat that surround the KSC facility.

The curriculum also provided an overview of the field of space life sciences. The students were instructed on NASA’s future long-term space exploration objectives, how life science plays an integral role in all of these endeavors, and how this mission can only be accomplished through collaborations and teamwork.

Students received six semester hours of college credit from Tuskegee University, NASA’s primary academic partner in this program. The SLSTP is sponsored by NASA Headquarters' Life Sciences Division, Office of Spaceflight, and Minority University Research and Education Division; and NASA's Kennedy Space Center.