Butterflies Depart for Orbit on Monday

The 1994 Simpsons episode Deep Space Homer provided a hilarious send-up of the oft tedious and/or ridiculous realities of space exploration -- at least in the eyes of the public. There's a wonderful moment aboard the space shuttle when Homer accidentally shatters an ant farm. You fool! exclaims Buzz Aldrin. Now we may never know if ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space.

Fifteen years and a few jumped sharks later, NASA continues to blast insects and arachnids into orbit. In fact we're just one weekend away from the launch of experiment CSI 03: Butterflies in Space. According to the University of Colorado at Boulder, a habitat containing monarch and painted lady butterfly larvae will take off Monday aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, bound for the International Space Station.

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute-funded (and CU-Boulder designed) experiment has nothing to do with tiny screws, but rather education. Once the payload's in orbit, teachers and K-12 students from throughout the United States will tune in at BioEd Online to watch the butterflynauts grow in a microgravity environment. Some students will even carry out their own butterfly experiment for comparison, though streaming video of an Earth-bound butterfly habitat will also be provided on the site. There's even a downloadable study guide, so it's not too late to get in on the fun.

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