center. Private industry paid a number of experiments aboard the station, and he often received E-mail from scientists outside NASA. This message was from SeaScience in La Jolla, California.
To, Dr. William Haning, ISS Bioscience
Sender, Helen Koenig, Principal Investigator
Re, Experiment CCU#23 Archaeon Cell Culture
Message, Our most recent downlinked data indicates rapid and unexpected increase in cell culture mass.
Please confirm with your onboard micro mass measurement device.
Another jiggle-the-handle request, he thought wearily. Many of the orbital experiments were controlled by commands from scientists on the ground. Data was recorded within the various lab racks, using video or automatic sampling devices, and the results downlinked directly to researchers on earth. With all the sophisticated equipment aboard ISS, there were bound to be glitches. That’s the real reason humans were needed up here—to troubleshoot the temperamental electronics.
He called up the file for CCU#23 on the payloads computer and reviewed the protocol. The cells in the culture were Archaeons, bacterialike marine organisms collected from deep-sea thermal vents.
They were harmless to humans.
He floated across the lab to the cell culture unit and slipped his stockinged feet into the holding stirrups to maintain his position. The unit was a box-shaped device with its own fluidhandling and delivery system to continuously perfuse two dozen cell cultures and tissue specimens. Most of the experiments were completely self-contained and without need of human intervention.
In his four weeks aboard ISS, Bill had only once laid eyes on the tube 23.
He pulled open the cell specimen chamber tray. Inside were twenty-four culture tubes arrayed around the periphery of the unit.
He identified #23 and removed it from the tray.
At once he was alarmed. The cap appeared to be bulging out, as though under pressure. Instead of a slightly turbid liquid, was what he’d expected to see, the contents was a vivid blue-green.
He tipped the tube upside down, and the culture did not shift. It was no longer liquid, but thickly viscous.
He calibrated the micro mass measurement device and slipped the tube into the specimen slot. A moment later, the data on the screen.
Something is very wrong, he thought. There has been some sort of contamination. Either the original sample of cells was not pure, another organism has found its way into the tube and has destroyed the primary culture.
He typed out his response to Dr. Koenig.
Your downlinked data confirmed. Culture appears drastically altered. It is no longer liquid, but seems to be a gelatinous mass, bright, almost neon blue-green. Must consider the possibility of contamination… He paused. There was another possibility, the effect of microgravity. On earth, tissue cultures tended to grow in flat sheets, expanding in only two dimensions across the surface of their containers. In the weightlessness of space, freed from the effects of gravity, those same cultures behaved differently. They grew in dimensions, taking on shapes they never could on earth.
What if #23 was not contaminated? What if this was simply how Archaeons behaved without gravity to keep them in check?
Almost immediately he discarded that notion. These changes were too drastic. Weightlessness alone could not have turned a single-celled organism into this startling green mass.
He typed,
Will return a sample of culture # 23 to you on next shuttle flight. Please advise if you have further instructions—
The sudden clang of a drawer startled him. He turned and saw Kenichi Hirai working at his own research rack. How long had he been there? The man had drifted so quietly into the lab Bill had even known he’d entered. In a world where there is no up or down, where the sound of footsteps is never heard, a verbal greeting is sometimes the only way to alert others to your presence.
Noticing Bill’s glance, Kenichi merely
To, Dr. William Haning, ISS Bioscience
Sender, Helen Koenig, Principal Investigator
Re, Experiment CCU#23 Archaeon Cell Culture
Message, Our most recent downlinked data indicates rapid and unexpected increase in cell culture mass.
Please confirm with your onboard micro mass measurement device.
Another jiggle-the-handle request, he thought wearily. Many of the orbital experiments were controlled by commands from scientists on the ground. Data was recorded within the various lab racks, using video or automatic sampling devices, and the results downlinked directly to researchers on earth. With all the sophisticated equipment aboard ISS, there were bound to be glitches. That’s the real reason humans were needed up here—to troubleshoot the temperamental electronics.
He called up the file for CCU#23 on the payloads computer and reviewed the protocol. The cells in the culture were Archaeons, bacterialike marine organisms collected from deep-sea thermal vents.
They were harmless to humans.
He floated across the lab to the cell culture unit and slipped his stockinged feet into the holding stirrups to maintain his position. The unit was a box-shaped device with its own fluidhandling and delivery system to continuously perfuse two dozen cell cultures and tissue specimens. Most of the experiments were completely self-contained and without need of human intervention.
In his four weeks aboard ISS, Bill had only once laid eyes on the tube 23.
He pulled open the cell specimen chamber tray. Inside were twenty-four culture tubes arrayed around the periphery of the unit.
He identified #23 and removed it from the tray.
At once he was alarmed. The cap appeared to be bulging out, as though under pressure. Instead of a slightly turbid liquid, was what he’d expected to see, the contents was a vivid blue-green.
He tipped the tube upside down, and the culture did not shift. It was no longer liquid, but thickly viscous.
He calibrated the micro mass measurement device and slipped the tube into the specimen slot. A moment later, the data on the screen.
Something is very wrong, he thought. There has been some sort of contamination. Either the original sample of cells was not pure, another organism has found its way into the tube and has destroyed the primary culture.
He typed out his response to Dr. Koenig.
Your downlinked data confirmed. Culture appears drastically altered. It is no longer liquid, but seems to be a gelatinous mass, bright, almost neon blue-green. Must consider the possibility of contamination… He paused. There was another possibility, the effect of microgravity. On earth, tissue cultures tended to grow in flat sheets, expanding in only two dimensions across the surface of their containers. In the weightlessness of space, freed from the effects of gravity, those same cultures behaved differently. They grew in dimensions, taking on shapes they never could on earth.
What if #23 was not contaminated? What if this was simply how Archaeons behaved without gravity to keep them in check?
Almost immediately he discarded that notion. These changes were too drastic. Weightlessness alone could not have turned a single-celled organism into this startling green mass.
He typed,
Will return a sample of culture # 23 to you on next shuttle flight. Please advise if you have further instructions—
The sudden clang of a drawer startled him. He turned and saw Kenichi Hirai working at his own research rack. How long had he been there? The man had drifted so quietly into the lab Bill had even known he’d entered. In a world where there is no up or down, where the sound of footsteps is never heard, a verbal greeting is sometimes the only way to alert others to your presence.
Noticing Bill’s glance, Kenichi merely
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