Meet the mice who soared through space and back again – The San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Move over, Mickey, Southern California has new rodent celebrities. You might call them Micetronauts 2.0.

The first group of star-trekking mice to ever travel to the International Space Station has returned to their home at a UCLA lab, where theyre being studied for a promising new therapy to regrow lost bone density.

All the rodents from ISS made it back alive and healthy on July4!, said Dr. Chia Soo, a lead researcher on UCLAs NELL-1 study.

A group of forty mice blasted into low-Earth orbit 220 miles up on June 3 from Florida, as part of a robust NASA science mission. Other projects on board included an investigation into mysterious pulsar stars believe to hold keys for better navigation and time-keeping capabilities on Earth, and a fruit-fly study into treating weakened cardiac muscles.

Half the mice in the NELL-1 study are still living on the Space Station and being treated with the protein that Soo and her team believe may spur degraded bone to regrow.

The other half splashed down inside a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean off Baja California on Monday, and were unloaded the following morning in San Pedro.

The mice passed through the Earths 3,000-degree Fahrenheit atmosphere, at a rate of force equal to about five times their body weight, without injury, scientists said.

They looked really good. They were very healthy, said Louis Stodieck, director of BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulders aerospace-engineering sciences division.

When the 20 still-orbiting astro-mice return to join those now back in the lab, their bone development will be compared.

Stodieck, who managed the rodents complex travel and care accommodations, joined UCLA researchers as the first to greet the returning rodents. During their travel, they lived inside a special habitat and ate moist, nutrient-rich food bars developed by NASA. (Think of a power bar but not quite so sweet, said Stodieck. The mice love it. Its very good, Ive actually tried it.).

Like returning astronauts, the micetronauts appeared initially unsteady in gravity. Their space habitat had mesh walls, allowing them to crawl around with stability.

They get so adapted to microgravity, that gravity probably feels a little hard, Stodieck said. They looked a little bit tenuous, but theyre getting used to it.

Since the Soviet Sputnik program returned the first animals dogs, rodents and insects from a brief trip around the Earth in 1957, the U.S. Space Shuttle program has gone on to return animals from rocket trips.

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But these are the first U.S. rodents to participate in a lengthy microgravity research trip, and to board the space stations National Laboratory, Stodieck said.

These studies, with animal models, are few and far between. They are difficult and expensive, he said. Its very important for us, in any of these studies, to maximize their scientific utility. The space station is a tremendous laboratory platform. Were learning a lot of things.

Increasingly, researchers are studying the effects of microgravity on stem cells to understand the full potential of space research.

But the mice are promising some exciting results that could help many people on Earth, according to the scientists.

Astronauts (and micetronauts) experience severe bone loss when they travel outside Earths gravity-laden atmosphere. Floating around in microgravity not only depletes bone mass, it also weakens muscles most notably, heart muscle.

If it can work for microgravity-related bone loss, then it could have increased use for patients one day on Earth who have bone loss from trauma or aging, Soo said.

SpaceXs reusable rockets and spacecraft are enabling U.S. researchers to send experiments to orbit affordably from America for the first time in years.

Five years ago, the self-propelling Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to dock at the International Space Station. Its able to return to Earth by plopping, Space Shuttle-style, into the ocean.

Its also built to return to space repeatedly throughout its life.

The Dragon craft that returned the 20 mice to Earth on July 3 previously flew to the Space Station in 2014.

SpaceXs business model relies on such high-tech recycling and on a consistent, persistent launch calendar.

Keeping pace with growing customer demand, SpaceX launched its third rocket in 12 days last Wednesday just 48 hours after two successive dramatic last-second aborts on the launch pad.

The mission also carried hundreds of fruit flies for an investigation into the effects of microgravity on the cardiovascular system.

Fruit fly hearts have similar components to humans and are much closer to humans, in some respect, than mice and rats, said Karen Ocorr, who is leading the study at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla.

The research team sent hundreds of flies packed in six tissue box-sized habitats. Four of the boxes carried 2,000 fly eggs, and others carried hundreds of breeding adults, intended to give birth in space to flies that would return to Earth.

We have a team of 12 people who will be present in the lab when we receive the flies back, Ocorr said. Well spend the next month or more trying to understand the effects on their skeletal muscle and heart muscle function, among other things.

People who have long-term illnesses, or are infirm and spend a long time in bed, experience progressive cardiac dysfunctions, she said, adding that this study could help develop new therapies for weak hearts.

Lennox Middle School students will also soon get back research from inside this Dragon. Theyre studying whether lemon-mint plants grow better, worse, or the same in microgravity, as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.

We wanted to use mint because its something we use a lot in our Hispanic culture, said Nayeli Salgado, one of the Lennox school team members. It has many uses stomach aches, ear aches. You can use it instead of medicine. It takes the pain away.

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Meet the mice who soared through space and back again - The San Gabriel Valley Tribune