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SCIENCE-BRAZIL: An Astronaut Opens a Door to Space

Mario Osava* - Tierramérica

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 2 2006 (IPS) - When the first Brazilian astronaut, Marcos Cesar Pontes, leaves for outer space in March, he will be opening the doors to the heavens not only for some renowned scientists in his country, but also for dozens of children at 39 municipal schools.

Pontes, a lieutenant colonel in the air force, is scheduled to leave Earth on Mar. 30 aboard the Russian spaceship Soyuz, blasting off from Kazakhstan and heading for the International Space Station. There, over eight days, he will conduct various experiments, including two on the effects of microgravity, with the long-distance participation of schoolchildren from José dos Campos, located 100 km from Sao Paulo.

This city of 600,000 people was chosen because it is considered the Brazilian capital of aerospace technology. It is home to EMBRAER, the Brazilian aeronatuics agency, and to the Aeronautics Technology Institute, where Pontes graduated in engineering.

The children’s experiments involve observing the germination of bean seeds in orbit and comparing it to the usual process down here on Earth, and studying the reaction of chlorophyll – the pigment of green plants that allows them to turn light into chemical energy – in an environment where there is almost no gravity.

“The goal of the experience is mainly educational. We want to encourage studying science and to awaken the vocation in the students,” Elisa Saeta, sciences coordinator for the Municipal Education Secretariat and coordinator of the project, told Tierramérica.

The teachers and students will be able to use photos and reports from the astronaut, sent over the Internet, to track the space mission and to evaluate the data obtained, said Saeta.

This is a pioneering experience because it involves primary school children, and not university or high school students, says Marcio Catalani, who is coordinating the geographical aspects of the project.

The children’s experiments are purely educational, and will not produce new scientific knowledge, unlike the projects conducted by professional scientists, who for the first time will observe the germination in microgravity of a tropical tree, the “Gonçalo Alves”, said Roberto Fontes Vieira, head of the experiment and a scientist with the genetic resources centre at EMBRAPA, the Brazilian government’s agricultural research agency.

They will also try to observe the differences in physiological processes, like hormone production that can alter growth, and phototropism – which makes plants grow towards the light – in the absence of light, and geotropsim, which orients roots to dig deeper into the ground, said the scientist.

The Gonçalo Alves tree was chosen because its seeds germinate in four days and the species has high tolerance for different environmental stressors. It is a tree from the Cerrado, the Brazilian savanna, and is used for lumber – and therefore faces intense logging.

The practical results of that study will not be visible in the short term, but will be important for “opening doors”, with sights on greater coordination between EMBRAPA and the Brazilian Space Agency, said Vieira.

Other experiments, led by Brazilian universities, will study the effects of microgravity on capillary evaporators (devices that pump fluids through tiny pores), luminescent proteins (like those found in fireflies), and nanotechnology probes (miniscule devices for such uses as locating disease in the body).

Furthermore, a study aimed at future space travel will evaluate how the genetic material DNA’s repair system reacts in microgravity, because “nothing is known about how that process operates” without gravity, Nasser Ribeiro Assad, head of the study and professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, explained to Tierramérica.

Pontes’s “Centenary Mission”, named to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the first flight by Alberto Santos Dumont, who Brazilians consider the inventor of the airplane, is possible because of Brazil’s participation in the International Space Station and the cooperation agreements with Russia.

All of this is part of an ambitious space programme begun in the 1960s and expanded in the decades since, to include the construction of satellites and the Alcántara launch site in the northern Brazilian state of Maranhao.

Brazil hopes many countries will use the launch site, whose location near the Equator is a unique advantage. Ukraine has already signed a contract, but there is none with the United States because the Brazilian Parliament considers Washington’s conditions unacceptable.

The Brazilian space programme also involves a satellite launch vehicle, which has so far failed, including the tragic explosion of its third prototype in August 2003 in Alcántara, claiming the lives of 21 technicians and engineers.

This year, Brazil will earmark some 200 million dollars for its space programme, double the budget it had in the 1980s.

(* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent. Originally published Jan. 28 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)