On Sunday, February 19, a group of students from Bearden Middle School watched as a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster lifted off from a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The children had a vested interest in the launch, because the rocket carried a science experiment they designed for use on the International Space Station.
Sunday's launch was flawless, and now the experiment designed in Knox County is on its way to the space station. The Bearden experiment is intended to see how well antibiotics work in space. The answer could tell researchers something important about treating communicable diseases that may develop on long-term space flights.
WUOT's Megan Jamerson tells us what the students and their teacher thought about the launch and the project. Then, Megan and Method host Brandon Hollingsworth talk about the goals of the project. Finally, Brandon tracks the history of student projects on NASA spaceflights.