The observed subject are the young Arabidopsis Thaliana plants (cf. Figure 1). To obtain data of desired statistical certainty, a group of 40–60 plants will be flown in each stage and also a group of the same size will serve as a ground based, never flown, control group. This number of plants in each stage should be sufficient to provide enough experimental subject both for immediate analysis and for further growth observation (even assuming that some plants may get dislodged from the planting base during the flight).

The exact age of the plants at the moment of their flight is yet to be determined. Not surprisingly, we want plants at the stage of development in which they will be most sensitive to changes cause by a short application of severe gravitational conditions. Based on our research so far, the seeds are unlikely candidates and so are the fully developed plans. Most likely, our little green astronauts will be several days old seedlings of Arabidopsis Thaliana species.

Since the size of plants this young barely reaches 1/2 inch, we plan to house several plants (10-15) in a Petri dish. Plants will grow on a wet filtration paper attached to the bottom of a Petri dish by couple drops of of glue. During the flight, the Petri dish will be closed to protect plants from possible exposure to harmful gases inside the rocket. An exploded view of such a housing is depicted on Figure 2.

Because the estimated number of plants needed for each stage exceeds the capacity of a single Petri dish, several Petri dishes will be needed for each stage. The Petri dishes needs to be well integrated with the vehicle (rocket) to prevent damage or movement during the flight.

As of now, we are leaning towards stacking the Petri Dishes using a load bearing spacers (see Figure 3 for detailed drawing).

The whole assembly of spacers and Petri dishes will be housed in a phenolic tube which will easily slide for a perfect fit in the body of the rocket. See the picture on the left. The left half of the picture shows how a Petri dish and a load-bearing spacer fit together (including the screws that prevent the Petri dish from movement). The right half of the picture depicts the assembly of spacers and Petri dishes in an encapsulating tube, capped on each end by a plywood cap.

An up-to-date detailed description of the project can be found in the Flight Readiness Review document in the Documents section.