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Working Inside the Box
Dr. Tony Phillips & Steve Price
The Space Station has a new way for the crew to get their hands on things. It's called a "glovebox."
Valery Korzun, the commander of Expedition 5, floats beside the new Microgravity Science Glovebox.
Humans learn by touching things. And we can often make things work better by adjusting them with our hands. That includes scientists doing experiments. A scientist can watch what's happening, react to surprises, and adjust things to get the best results.
But until now most experiments on the Station have been sealed in containers, and the crew couldn't do anything with them. The experiments were automatic, but if anything went wrong, or just needed a little tweaking, the crew couldn't do it.
The glovebox in its rack, ready to travel to the Station.
This was for the crew's safety. Liquids in zero-g don't always stay in their test tubes. And if fumes get thick, astronauts can't open a window for fresh air. Floating liquids and particles, called contaminants, are a danger to the crew and to the Station.
Scientists needed something that would keep contaminants in, but not keep astronauts out. The solution is the Microgravity Science Glovebox, usually just called "the glovebox" around NASA.
The glovebox is about the size of a juke box. It is made of aluminum, and is sealed so it doesn't leak. It has enough room inside for experiments as large as 255 liters (67 gallons)! Astronauts can reach into the glovebox by sliding their hands into rubber gloves attached to the front and sides. There are large windows made of clear plastic so the astronauts have a clear view of what's happening inside.
Dr. Aleksandar Ostrogorsky using a glovebox on the ground.
"It's a beautiful setup, like a small laboratory," says Aleksander Ostrogorsky, a professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Astronauts will soon be doing experiments for Aleksander using the glovebox.
The inside of the glovebox is much like a science lab bench. There are power supplies, vacuum ports and computer interfaces. That means scientists can use their own lab benches on Earth to design space experiments. Not having to make everything automatic means experiments are easier to build and less expensive.
The inside of the Destiny Lab on the Space Station, the new home of the glovebox.
Scientists are looking forward to using the glovebox for many things. They will study things like the strange behavior of flames in zero-g, how cells work, and the growth of tissues. There are so many things to learn about in space, and the new glovebox will help!
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