FEATURE
“We won’t know what is possible unless we keep pushing the boundaries and leveraging microgravity to our advantage.” ! JOSH STILING
Many scientific experiments have hitched a ride on the SpaceX rocket.
But low gravity hasn’t benefited everyone’s research. Zoran Radi ć , a School of Pharmacy professor at UC San Diego, sent his work on five di ff erent SpaceX flights to try to find antidotes against organophosphate poisoning caused by pesticides and nerve-agent warfare. He was trying to crystallize proteins targeted by the poisons, which would help him study how to make antidotes. “We were able to obtain crystals and they were really nice, but of insu ffi cient size, so we were not as lucky as some other researchers,” he says. “We couldn’t really use those crystals.” Right now, there is growing attention to conducting research in space, but it may be prohibitively complicated and expensive for many San Diego scientists, says Josh Stiling, an investor at Anzu Partners who studied the finances of space research at UC San Diego. One barrier is the very long timeline to get work into space. Researchers have to submit a proposal, obtain funding, and find a spot on a SpaceX rocket, which could take at least a year. “Then let’s say you get through all that, now you’ve got to design your experiment for space, and there are a lot of things that you need to consider, such as the microfluidics. Everything reacts di ff erently in space, so any type of fluid flow needs
60 OCTOBER 2023
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator