Four chosen for NASA project

Students will test the effects of weightlessness on honeybees

Four Community College of Rhode Island students will soon be heading to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to experiment with weightlessness and share the excitement of science in action. This June, Nikki Bouchard, Tara Vito, Hannah Crutchfield and David DeFrancesco will join 49 other undergraduate student teams from all over the country converging in Houston to conduct experiments in reduced gravity aboard the agency’s famous “Weightless Wonder” aircraft. A fifth student, Jodie Fletcher, was involved with the development of the project but is unable to travel with the team because of schedule conflicts.

Each year, the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunity Program (RGSFOP) gives undergraduate students the opportunity to propose, build, and fly a reduced gravity experiment. The CCRI team will perform their experiment on the effects of weightlessness on apis mellifera, better known as honeybees, aboard NASA’s C-9 aircraft. The C-9 produces weightlessness 25 seconds at a time by executing a series of about 30 parabolas – steep climbs followed by free falls – over the Gulf of Mexico. During the free falls, the students will be able to experience how an astronaut feels while floating in space.

The experiment may prove useful to the larger scientific community in planning for space inhabitation. According to team captain Bouchard, “Apis mellifera have the potential to contribute to sustainable plant growth and pollination for purposes of food supply, air quality, life cycles, and food chain interdependence in a microgravity environment.”

This team is the second from CCRI to make the trip to NASA. Under the tutelage of Karen Kortz, assistant professor of physics and honors project advisor, this team and another group two years ago were each selected from a pool of applicants that included representation from some of the best known science and engineering programs in the country. Proposals are reviewed for both scientific merit and educational outreach potential. The students have dedicated many hours to researching and building their experiment; after their flight experience they will reach out to other students and the community to share their unique experiences, discoveries, and excitement.