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From: HPM@SU-AI@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: none
Message-ID: <3175@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Jul-83 22:28:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3175
Posted: Sun Jul 17 22:28:00 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Jul-83 23:41:46 EDT
Lines: 52

From:  Hans Moravec 

a067  0608  12 Jul 83
PM-Space Ants,420
Student Says Ants Probably Survived Space Trip
By ROBERT WADE
Associated Press Writer
    CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - Scientists and a group of enterprising students
are still trying to find out what killed an ant colony that blasted
into orbit aboard the space shuttle Challenger. But one student says
he thinks he has the answer.
    Anthony Trusty, 19, who helped design the experiment while attending
Camden High School, said Monday a preliminary look at the colony
showed the ants probably died when their living quarters dehydrated in
the California desert after landing.
    A post-landing inspection showed the moss and dirt inside the
L-shaped habitat had dried out. But videotapes made just after
Challenger rocketed into space June 18 showed conditions inside the
colony were acceptable, said Trusty, now a computer science major at
Rutgers University.
    Trusty was the first of the present and former students and teachers
from Camden and Woodrow Wilson high schools to say publicly that the
more than 100 carpenter ants and their queen, Nora, survived orbit.
    Others involved in the project said detailed findings on whether the
insects died while awaiting takeoff, in space, during re-entry or
after touchdown won't be available until at least mid-August.
    ''The two schools are doing their studies and any conjectures as to
the results of the whys, wheres and how is premature until these
studies are completed,'' said a spokesman for RCA Corp., which
sponsored the project.
    Although the colony's death was a disappointment, teachers say the
program accomplished its goal of getting students from the rival
inner-city schools involved in sciences, mathematics, computer
programming and engineering. The 5 1/2-year-old project has won wide
praise and the notice of President Reagan.
    Dr. Thomas Chavis, an RCA scientist who became involved in the
program in 1978 and continued to advise the students despite his
retirement two years ago, said the data from the experiment would help
researchers determine how weightlessness affects species in a
community settings.
    ''Does it disintergrate their ability to get along? Do they continue
to work as a group or split up as individuals over long periods of
weightlessness?'' said Chavis.
    He said scientists would find the data useful in efforts to colonize
space for humans.
    Autopsies, in which the students will analyze the ants' remains, are
under way to determine how long the insects survived after being
sealed into a 30-gallon container filled with monitoring equipment in
Florida in late April and placed aboard Challenger.
    
ap-ny-07-12 0907EDT
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