It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

As the holidays near, we have been keeping as busy as ever, but we are looking forward to Winter Break. However, the temperature has been falling a lot recently, so we’ve started putting the cacti into our garage when the temperature gets below freezing. Otherwise, the cacti are not just doing well; they are thriving! Our control piece from the sounding rocket has grown a new pad which is starting to grow its own spines! Rocket Sample #2 is also growing some impressive spines.

            In regards to our cacti samples from the air balloon, we have heard that the samples are somewhere in Palestine, Texas at the moment. We are really excited to see how they are doing. Alas, however, homework calls. We’ll put up a post when we get the samples!

The Massive Update Post

Weekly Update #5,6,7,8

We have had a few very eventful weeks here in Cactus land, and there is both good and bad news.

Firstly, the bad news:

Rocket Sample#1 is officially dead. We did our best to revive it, but the rot took too great of a toll.

Now for the good news!

The Rocket Control sample has started to grow new pads! They are extremely tiny right now, but you can see them on the bottom right tip of the sample. YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Also, the research balloon has launched form New Mexico, and landed somewhere in Texas. We are extremely excited to see how our second set of samples handled the trip!

P.S. Whew! The new semester has arrived, and with it comes a mountain of homework! Julius and I will update the blog as we can!

The Balloon Has Landed!

Launch! 2.0

Ladies and gentlemen, the research balloon has launched! Unfortunately, Julius and I were in class while it was launching, so we could not watch it live, but Cubes in Space has some awesome pictures of the launch that I want to share with y'all.

It Will Lauch Eventually!

Yet again, the launch of the research balloon has been delayed due to weather! :-(
Julius and I will keep y'all updated, and hopefully NASA will be able to launch it next week.

Thank you for reading!

-Edith

Science Will Prevail!

The research balloon carrying our experiment should launch on Friday at 8:30 a.m. Central time!

You can watch it with us live HERE!

Wish us luck, and keep your fingers crossed for no more rain!

Thank you for reading!

-Edith

Research Balloons are Awsome! (and cacti are cool too)

This week was full of rescuing the cacti from sudden downpours, constantly checking the weather in New Mexico, and being amazed at the sheer amount of helium that will be going into the research balloon.

Weekly Update #4

What a week! One minute the sun is shining, the next it is raining cats and dogs! Julius and I were stumped as to whether we should put the samples out in the sun, or hide them from the rain. In the end, we did a bit of both, and we may-or-may-not have run out into a downpour yelling "Save the cactus!".

The first sample seems to be doing the best,

as it is getting steadily greener.

The second sample is still trying to recover from rot.

And the Control cactus is somewhere in-between the two.

Also, Julius and I have been waiting for the research balloon to launch, but so far we have not had any luck. (Annoying rain!) In the meantime, Cubes in Space has been posting some awesome photos of NASA's preparations for launch.

Look at the size of those Helium tanks! We can hardly wait to see the balloon launch, and then see how our experiment survived space travel!

Thank you for reading!

-Edith