E.T. Cactus

Yesterday, Julius and I unpacked, measured, weighed and photographed the cactus that went to space! We had loads of fun, and we were surprised how well the cactus stood up to space travel.

First, we sterilized a plate, scale, and two pairs of tweezers with rubbing alcohol, and put down some paper towels to protect our work-surface.

Then, we admired the awesome NASA logo on the experiment cube, and weighed the cube. It was 3 grams lighter than when we shipped it off!

Next, we got to crack it open!

We proceeded to slowly extricate the pieces of cactus from the gravel. I can hardly believe that this gravel, which came from my backyard, has been to space! COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Enter a frowning Julius)

"Edith, this is a serious science project! We need to act professional."

Ahem... right. ANYWAY,

The first piece of cactus we pulled out surprised us. Part of it was, as we had been dreading, rotten. But the rest of the piece was in good condition, and we are confident that this piece can be salvaged. However, the second piece of cactus blew us away.

This piece of cactus is in near PERFECT condition! After three months, over 3,000 miles of travel, and a trip to space, this piece of cactus looks almost exactly the same as when we shipped it.

A picture of this piece of cactus from 3 months ago.

A picture of this piece of cactus from YESTERDAY.

  Julius and I are thoroughly exited about how well this piece of cactus handled space travel, and there may or may not have been a declaration of "It Liiiiiives!" that would rival any Frankenstein movie.

The two cactus samples are now stored in a dark box, so we can slowly reintroduce them to light, and we are looking forward to the next phase of our experiment!
 Until then, we can celebrate the successful return of our Texas Prickly Pear cactus!

Thank you for reading!

-Edith

"The Uber Sciencey Post" (A.K.A. the report for our teacher)

... As delivered by Dr. Tony the Cat, because cute cats make everything more interesting. :-)

We Have The Green Light, or Rather, A Green Cactus.

We are ready to move on to the next phase of our experiment, and our results so far have greatly exceeded our expectations.

Today we unpacked, measured, weighed, sorted, photographed, and re-packaged the cacti from the sounding rocket experiment cube and its control.

The control, although moldy, is not only still alive, but has started growing roots.

The two pieces of cactus that went to space have returned relatively unscathed. One has a spot that is rotting, and the other is in perfect condition. Both possess a vibrant green color, and we have high hopes for being able to revive all of the samples.

These results are much better than we had anticipated, as we had expected the cactus to be completely brown and dormant upon arrival. This places us slightly ahead of schedule, and puts us in a position to slowly reintroduce the samples to light over the upcoming week.

We will  post a more detailed report tomorrow, that will have pictures documenting the steps we took while unpacking the cactus, and provide some of our hypotheses for the changes we observed in the samples.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Edith and Julius

We Haz The Precious!

*The above use of "Teen Grammar" haz has been approved by our teacher ;-)

A really cool sticker that CiS sent us along with our experiment cube.

Today Julius and I went to get our experiment cube! It is finally here! We don't have enough time to open it today, but we will get to it as soon as possible, and there will be MANY pictures!

Thank you for reading!

-Edith

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I decided to stop by the school closet where our control cubes are housed, and discovered that the rocket control is growing mold! The good news is that the research balloon control seems to be mold-free, but this does make me wonder how our experiments are doing...

Thank you for reading!

-Edith

Up Next: The Stratosphere!

Launch of a super pressure balloon in Antarctica.

Credits: NASA/Wallops Flight Facility

Today Julius and I learned that the research balloon carrying our second cactus experiment will launch on August 22nd! I am not sure wether this one will have a live-stream or not, but I will write a post when I know more!

Thank you for reading!

-Edith

Image courtesy of NASA Wallops Facility

The video of the sounding rocket launch is up! If you would like to watch our experiment launch into space, you can do so HERE!
Julius and I are currently waiting to get our sounding rocket experiment back from Cubes in Space headquarters. Also, we are looking forward to the launch of the research balloon in August that will carry our second cactus experiment into the stratosphere!

Thank you for reading!

-Edith

Post-Launch Timeline

Image courtesy of NASA Wallops Facility.

(Will be updated to include future events)

June 24, 2016:
Sounding rocket experiment has launched from NASA Wallops Facility! You can view the official press release HERE.

June 24, 2016:
Research balloon experiment is at Cubes in Space Headquarters waiting for launch in August.

June, 28, 2016:
Experiments successfully returned to Cubes in Space Headquarters.