I know the subject line sounds like a corny 1950s sci-fi series (I can just imagine the title announced with great drama by the voice over man on TV),  but it is actually happening at this moment. There are bees in space, orbiting in the shuttle that launched today. Here's the news that I just received from Steve Buchmann.

>Bees in Space!
>
>Today, at 10:39 EST (January 16, 2003), three shiny black bee
>astronauts (Arizona carpenter bees, Xylocopa c. arizonensis)  were
>launched from Pad 39-A into orbit on the STS-107 mission onboard the
>U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia. The human and pollinator astronauts
>will land in Florida on February 1st after many orbits and a flight
>duration of 15 days and 22 hours in orbit. The bees were part of an
>experiment designed by NAPPC steering committee member Stephen
>Buchmann (The Bee Works and University of Arizona) and a class of
>eager High School students from Lichtenstein. The students were in
>Florida to watch their bees really become airborne. CNN carried the
>launch live and mentioned that carpenter bees were one of the insect
>student payloads aboard the flight, commanded by Rick Husband and
>carrying the first Israeli astronaut.
>
>Live and pre-recorded images will soon be available broadcast from
>orbit. You can see how the bees in space are doing by investigating
>the following hyperlinks online.
>
>STS-107, the 113th shuttle mission
>http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-107/mission-sts-107.html
>
>Carpenter Bee Videos and stills (flight and ground movies)
>http://www.starsacademy.com/sts107/experiments/bees/bee_frameset.htm
>
>Lichtenstein student website
>http://www.starsacademy.com/sts107/students/liechtenstein.htm
>and  http://www.spacebees.li/
>
______________________________________________________
Matthew Shepherd, Pollinator Program Director
The Xerces Society
4828 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR 97215, USA
Tel: 503-232 6639 Fax: 503-233 6794
Email: [log in to unmask]
______________________________________________________
The Xerces Society is a nonprofit organization
dedicated to protecting the diversity of life
through the conservation of invertebrates.

For information and membership details,
see our website at www.xerces.org
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