Well, the semester is finally over, and Julius and I are
still breathing. Today, we were finally able to open the samples from the air
balloon! Firstly, let's take a look at the control.
Like several of our samples, the research balloon control was plagued by mold, and is completely dried out and irrecoverable. Keep this in mind when viewing the rest of our results.
Now, on to the experiment!
When we opened the cube we were met with two things: mold and, surprisingly, slime. Yes, slime.
Interestingly similar to our sounding rocket cube, one sample was destroyed by mold, while the other seems to be mold-free. The moldy sample, on the left, was completely dried out, and there appeared to be some sort of black mold on one end. This was relatively expected, but the second sample was what truly surprised us. It appeared to be unaffected by mold, but the pad was rotten. There were remnants of the interior structure and skin, but the meat had turned to a slime-like consistency. Due to the fact that it was unaffected by mold, and the that it was still in the early stages of decomposition and still retaining some moisture, We hypothesize that the pad could have been killed by the radiation it was exposed to during its flight in space, but there are several other factors that could have caused its decomposition.
Since both of our samples are irrecoverable, the research balloon experiment ends here. However, we have learned that mold is more prevalent of a problem than we had earlier anticipated, killing half of our samples, and that although hardy, Texas prickly pear cactus cannot survive radiation.
