Backgrounder: Students send microbe experiment on shuttle U.S. Atlantis

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lifted off Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a mission to deliver a stockpile of spare parts for the orbiting International Space Station (ISS). According to NASA, an experiment by college students that will study how microbes grow in microgravity is heading to orbit aboard Atlantis.

Undergraduate and graduate students at Texas Southern University in Houston developed the experiment.

"I'm thrilled that giving students the chance to design and research an experiment to fly in space is one of the tools we have at NASA to engage them in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori B. Garver said. "These young people are our future, and providing an opportunity to inspire them is a major part of our mission at NASA."

NASA's Office of Education selected Texas Southern University as a 2008 University Research Center (URC). Texas Southern established a Center for Bio-nanotechnology and Environmental Research. Students at the center developed the Microbial-1 experiment to evaluate the morphological and molecular changes in E. coli and B. subtilis bacteria.

"The University Research Center Project is designed to enhance the research infrastructure and capacity at minority institutions," said Katrina Emery, NASA's URC project manager at the agency's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. "By engaging in participatory learning opportunities like this experiment, students can see themselves as researchers, now and in the future."

This space shuttle flight experiment is a proof-of-concept model for the URC project to give students hands-on experience. The experiment provides the university students the opportunity to design, monitor and execute the study in laboratories, as well as near real-time on the space shuttle. Each component of the experiment is designed for easy reproduction in the classroom, providing a valuable experience to students.

Texas Southern University is one of 13 universities to receive grant funding from NASA's URC project. The project is designed to enhance the research capabilities of minority-serving institutions and increase the production of underrepresented and underserved students majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines.