In Australia we have also sponsored a unique project to send a secondary school experiment into space on a NASA shuttle. A first in many ways including the first time NASA has permitted scientific work outside the US to be taken in their shuttles. The Glen Waverley Secondary College won the opportunity to send their experiment, known as 'Spiders in Space' (investigating the impact of web spinning in microgravity) along with 4 other schools from around the world. Our support enabled 16 students to travel to Florida to brief NASA and see their experiment launched into space. The shuttle departed on January 16 and unfortunately ended in tragedy with the explosion of the shuttle before return to NASA, on 2 February. However, NASA remains keen to help the students complete the experiment, hopefully in 2004.
