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Space Fish: ISS Aquatic Habitat Delivered By HTV-3
astroengine writes "Yes, it's the moment we've all (secretly) been waiting for: Fish In Space! But before you go getting too excited and start asking the big questions — like: if there's a bubble in a microgravity aquarium, what happens if the fish falls into it? Let's ponder that for a minute... — it's worth pointing out that the fish aren't actually in space right now (their habitat has just been delivered to the space station by the unmanned Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle 'Kounotori 3') and this fishy experiment isn't just to see how fish enjoy swimming upside down, there's some serious science behind it."
Not that new...this experiment is derived from one flown on the Shuttle a few times already. This is mostly an extension of the previous research. What I am really interested in is the egg-to-egg possibility--the system is designed to support up to three generations of fish, so they will be able to observe whether zero-gravity causes intergenerational changes (eg., whether the children of those born in zero-g are as fit as those born of one-g fish, or as one-g fish themselves). This is a significant challenge for any possibility of space colonization, so experimentation in it is quite welcome.
Sound should be able to push bubbles around to prevent build-up of large bubbles.
The only problem then would be the fish spazzing out at the sound waves.
So grid to constantly cycle the water around in a twist to eliminate will probably be the other solution.
Their solution sounds similar to the latter, but obviously far more complex than my simple example.
I expected a sphere over a cuboid. Or even a cone. But hey, I am just guessing. They likely done hundreds of simulations to get the right system with the most space.
Good luck to the experiment. Shall be interesting.
Aquatic critters can be one link in a combined waste treatment / hydro-ponic growing system. I've heard that a cubic meter of sea water is the most prolific growing medium on earth. I'm interested in the downstream outcomes of science like this.
Also am reminded of an old pulp sc-fi short story that took the form of letters between a Mars bio-dome colonist and the manufacturer of the living bio dome system... they kept adding critters to the dome to try and balance the eco-system, with predictable and silly results.
In particular, goldfish and newts flew on STS-65 (1994). Not sure if complete life-cycle experiments have been done before. Some quick searching turns up this speculation (Google Books preview) as of 2003 that fish will soon become the first vertebrate to live a complete life cycle in space.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I hope that the next step after this is taking a cat into space in a properly-designed cage. (You don't want it loose!) Make sure that at least part of the cage is lined with something that the cat can grip so that it has the choice between clinging to the side of the cage and moving around in the inside and see how it adapts. Yes, I know that waste disposal will be a problem, but it's one that we'll have to solve sooner or later anyway.
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Is that actor Ronald Regan still available?
Nope, apparently he got some kind of management job instead.
The enemy's gate is down.