Photograph by Brent Humphreys From the day Ronald Reagan proposed the International Space Station in 1984, it has sparked controversy. The House of Representatives nearly cut off funding in 1993; numerous scientists and scientific societies have denounced it as little more than a jobs program. But the station survived and has recently begun hosting regular crews and experiments. Originally trained as a life scientist, John Uri of NASA's Johnson Space Center has the daunting assignment of managing scientific research on the station, making sure it delivers on its grand promises. He offered an early assessment to Discover reporter Jocelyn Selim.
The $93 billion dollar question: Why do we need a space station? Microgravity changes everything--whether we're talking about a hemispheric candle flame, a tissue culture growing in three dimensions, or genes being expressed differently--and there is no way to replicate microgravity on Earth. What we find could help us understand ...
