Butterflies In Space Station: Butterflies Attempt To Fly In Space And Fail (VIDEO)

The University of Kansas and Bioserve Technologies decided to send some monarch butterfly larvae to the International Space Station, provide them with microgravity (the nearest thing to feeling weightless) and see whether or not the caterpillars would become butterflies. The creatures did manage to metamorphose, but now that they're butterflies, the poor things absolutely cannot fly. The low gravity conditions fling them into a chaotic and rapid flight pattern that sends them banging around the plastic cages they're living in.

The first video is of Dr. Chip Taylor, the director of Monarch Watch, explaining the experiment. The second is a video of the results of Monarch Watch, and the third seems to be a pair of butterflies who got stuck together. Take a look and let us know what you think.

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Butterflies In Space

Fascinating science!

This makes me uncomfortable.

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Comments

[firefly echo]

12:51 PM on 12/09/2009

This is kind of sad to watch. I think I'm going to go make little butterfly spacesuits to feel better.

[Andy la rue]

10:38 AM on 12/07/2009

I am not a big fan of human beings exploring space. Right now, the universe at least has the insurance policy of humans being stuck on/near Earth with very little hope of colonizing another planet. As a species we are far too self destructive and barbaric to be trusted to colonize space. We divide ourselves among 'teams' along any possible line we can draw and then war with ourselves for no (in the long-term) no apparent reason whatsoever. It is my hope that we are destroyed (every specimen of homo sapien sapien) before we get the technology to spread our disease to another planet. It is astonishing that supposed 'men of science' are trying their best to help spread humanity across the cosmos.

We are anything BUT an advanced species. Try and legalize a union between two members of the same gender and over half of the community goes crazy. In other parts of the world they go on a killing spree (Uganda) and in others they are put in cages (middle east, Africa). Any country that looks at America sideways is threatened or actually invaded.

We seriously nee to take a look in the mirror, as a species, before we even think of spreading ourselves to another planet.

[GO-BAMA]

02:06 PM on 12/07/2009

Oh good god, calm down would you?

[kitsinu]

07:01 PM on 12/07/2009

Save lifeless planets from the plague of humanity? If you aren't trolling, go need to go see a psychiatrist.

[Usama]

07:26 AM on 12/07/2009

All I can think of is the military using this science to find a way to kill someone better. They used the butterfly because of its ability to fly not long after metamorphisis. As if they have some gene which instructs how to fly, I suspect. Either way, US military and how to overcome others in outerspace. Im sure once the technology establishes superiority, a political leader will begin calling for American space primacy.

[editor]

04:43 AM on 12/07/2009

Maybe we might want to actually GO someplace in space; you know; visit another world? Are we spending billions to see that a butterfly gets a little disoriented in zero g? Round and Round the Earth the shuttle goes; where its going; no one knows....

[buddhistMonkey]

05:58 AM on 12/07/2009

We don't have the technology yet to "visit another world." To get to Mars would take four months using current propulsion methods, which means you'd have to travel with at least eight months' worth of fuel, which would be prohibitively heavy. And that's just Mars, which, cosmically, is just down the street from Earth. The next closest planet outside of the solar system is 4.5 lightyears away, which would take something like 64,000 years to reach using current technology (and would require 128,000 years' worth of fuel to go and return).

In other words, enjoy the butterfly experiment, because that's all you're going to get for a long while.

[buddhistMonkey]

06:16 AM on 12/07/2009

Having rechecked the numbers, I suspect that my math above is off by a factor of four, meaning that it would take closer to 254,000 years to reach the closest planet outside of our solar system. Either way, if we're ever going to leave this rock, we're going to need to discover a way to travel at or near the speed of light. Maybe the butterflies will give us some insight.

Probably not, though.

[Tunghoy]

07:08 PM on 12/07/2009

We already have much of the technology for going to Mars. What we don't have is the necessary efficiencies or the necessary funds. Research is already under way for learning how to create pre-fab habitats, long-lasting energy sources, high performance/low maintenance vehicles and other necessities.

As for carrying fuel and supplies: unmanned ships holding sufficient life support, supplies, parts and fuel for the trip home will be placed into stable Mars orbit before astronauts leave Earth. When it's time for the return trip, they will lift off the Martian surface and dock with the unmanned vehicles.

Alpha Centauri is about 4.3 light years from Earth. We do not now have the technology to reach it even in a one-way, multiple-generation trip. But fusion-powered engines could turn a trip of several thousand years into a trip of about 30 years......if the star system even has planets worth exploring, and that isn't known, yet.

[Chipher]

03:16 AM on 12/07/2009

...think this is what they refer to as 'space garbage', turning American life savings into NASA lookatme's...

[kitsinu]

07:15 PM on 12/07/2009

The amount spent on this project would be very little since butterfly larvae are lightweight. Astronauts routinely conduct experiments, and many fail. But the successes pay for those failures and then some.

Without the moon missions, the transistor wouldn't exist. Transistors were invented specifically because the electronics for a moon mission were too bulky without them. The integrated circuits which followed were an outgrowth of semi-conductor technology which originated with transistors.

[RTIII]

11:59 PM on 12/08/2009

Unfortunately, chipher probably hasn't a clue what an IC is or what you do with them - why they're important. Some people just don't understand technology and how valuable the space program is.

Conservative estimates are that we get back well more than ten dollars for every one dollar spent on space.
.

[BillLaimbeer]

09:42 AM on 12/08/2009

Space garbage created by NASA or spun-off from NASA's look-at-me projects:

Enriched baby food, water purifications systems, scratch-resistant lenses, pool purification, ribbed swimsuit, golf ball aerodynamics, portable coolers/warmers, kinetic sports training, athletic shoes, the Dustbuster, shock-absorbing helmets, home security systems, smoke detectors, flat panel televisions, high-density batteries, trash compactors, food packaging, freeze-dried technology, cool sportswear, sports bras, hair styling appliances, fogless ski goggles, self-adjusting sunglasses, composite golf clubs, hang gliders, art preservation, quartz crystal timing equipment, microspheres, solar energy, weather forecasting aid, forest management, sensors for environmental control, wind monitor, telemetry systems, plant research (hydroponics), fire resistant material, radiation insulation, whale identification method, environmental analysis, noise abatement, pollution measuring devices, pollution control devices, smokestack monitor, radioactive leak detector, earthquake prediction system, sewage treatment, energy saving air conditioner, air purification, digital imaging breast biopsy system, breast cancer detection, laser angioplasty, ultrasound skin damage assessment, human tissue stimulator, cool suit, programmable pacemaker, ocular screening, automated unrinalysis, medical gas analyzer, voice-controlled wheelchair, arteriosclerosis detection,

[jimbo92107]

12:26 AM on 12/07/2009

Butterflail? I don't see this as anything conclusive about how a butterfly solves the problem of moving around essentially weightless. For one thing, the container was too small for the insect to gain any significant momentum. Plus, apparently it either gave up or lost motivation when it found itself drifting. If the point of flapping ones wings is to get airborne, then the bug's mission was accomplished for nothing, so from its perspective, I'm already in the air, and flapping simply gets me banging off the wall, so I'll stop flapping and just drift. Seems pretty sensible to me.

[Jacob77030]

11:34 PM on 12/06/2009

Don't feel so bad butterflies. Humans can't fly in space either.

[Cryostatic]

12:47 PM on 12/07/2009

For some strange reason, I laughed at this.

[blah84]

11:12 PM on 12/06/2009

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0129_030129_spaceants.html

[blah84]

11:01 PM on 12/06/2009

I realize that space on the ISS is limited esp. for experiments, but the container size ct butterfly size seems small. Butterflies generate lift in a different manner to other flying creatures on earth, via vortices. This means that their flight is very susceptible to turbulence. I would be interested to see a control experiment on earth in a similar sized enclosure as i suspect that the flight interference due to eddies created by the vortices within any container that size would make coherent flight for a butterfly difficult! Let them out into the ISS and then see how they manage?!

[MTGradwell]

01:11 AM on 12/07/2009

Dr, Taylor actually says in the first video "We're going to send caterpillars to schools. They're going to put them into simulated capsules, that are very simiilar to the one that's up in space".

Of course, none of the uploaded videos are of such a "simulated capsule", otherwise we might actually learn something instead of just being blown away by the spectacle; also, the schools would probably just watch the Earth-bound caterpillars on YouTube and pretend that they successfully raised butterflies in the classroom and got the same result, and they didn't forget to feed them, not at all.

[kitsinu]

07:20 PM on 12/07/2009

In zero gravity, they need fans to circulate air so that pockets of carbon dioxide don't build up around an astronaut which would cause them to breath in the same air they exhaled. It would be both likely and dangerous for butterflies to get sucked into the fans and cause lots of little bits of butterflies to spread through the station. Those little bits would then float around until gathered or inhaled by the occupants.

I do think they should see about making a larger enclosure though.

[Evan Linko]

07:59 PM on 12/06/2009

Proof that the homeostasis of living things is only maintained in their natural habitat.

[Mikeeee]

07:22 PM on 12/06/2009

This was so obvious and predictable it's ridiculous. Think about it kids. Tell the astronauts for one day they must maneuver with their hands behind their backs and you'll get exactly the same result. You would also have been told you're id eye ot for suggesting it.
They would eventually acquire the skills by adaptation and practice.
Who ever came up with this idea needs their accreditation checked.

[lemondade]

07:05 PM on 12/06/2009

Children are dying in africa of hunger and we are spending money to see if a butterfly can fly in a spaceship!?

Please let the children rule this planet.

[fairplaystacy]

07:11 PM on 12/06/2009

I didn't like what happened in "Lord of the Flies".

[patianneb]

02:17 PM on 12/13/2009

Exactly my reaction.

[ZombyWoof]

07:35 PM on 12/06/2009

Research from NASA has to varying degrees spawned technology or planted the seeds thereof that has affected every aspect of human life from knowledge of the heavens to medicine to computers to agriculture.

Even velcro came from the space program.

NASA budget= less than a penny per every tax dollar since 1978.
Effect= Resultant technology responsible for up to 30% of GDP as well as technology that has among many things served to ease the living condidtions of the dispossesd where there was a political will to do so.

[Chipher]

03:20 AM on 12/07/2009

...I think you meant to say **only** velcro came out of all the $535,000,000,000 that NASA raked in since Mission Accomplished Moon thingey. Velcro and, oh, a $M pen that (only) writes in zero gravity!! NASA is the single greatest evidence that technocracy is a fraud...

[Tunghoy]

07:13 PM on 12/07/2009

Well said. Fanned.

[rebeltoady]

06:09 PM on 12/06/2009

I expect they need gravity as would any object that files using the aerodynamics of earth flight. There's no surprise here.

[RTIII]

12:11 AM on 12/09/2009

That's uninformed and there was no failure shown, only suggested from the notoriously laughable HufPo article title.

Most likely, they need fewer objects in the cage and a little more room. And, airplanes don't really need gravety to fly - it's just another force, though certainly they could be designed differently - more efficiently - if they were to fly in zero G service.
.

[Hnorc]

06:09 PM on 12/06/2009

Maybe that is why there are no butterflies in space?

[nakedhand]

06:00 PM on 12/06/2009

Give them some more space!

Its like asking a cheetah to sprint in an apartment.

[Tunghoy]

07:16 PM on 12/07/2009

Isn't Cheetah the new nickname for Tiger?