Space Fish: ISS Aquatic Habitat Delivered By HTV-3 68
astroengine writes "Yes, it's the moment we've all (secretly) been waiting for: Fish In Space! But before you go getting too excited and start asking the big questions — like: if there's a bubble in a microgravity aquarium, what happens if the fish falls into it? Let's ponder that for a minute... — it's worth pointing out that the fish aren't actually in space right now (their habitat has just been delivered to the space station by the unmanned Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle 'Kounotori 3') and this fishy experiment isn't just to see how fish enjoy swimming upside down, there's some serious science behind it."
Sounds. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sound should be able to push bubbles around to prevent build-up of large bubbles.
The only problem then would be the fish spazzing out at the sound waves.
So grid to constantly cycle the water around in a twist to eliminate will probably be the other solution.
Their solution sounds similar to the latter, but obviously far more complex than my simple example.
I expected a sphere over a cuboid. Or even a cone. But hey, I am just guessing. They likely done hundreds of simulations to get the right system with the most space.
Good luck to the experiment. Shall be interesting.
Re:Looking forward to this one. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that new...
Moray Star Boats [alioth.net] - since 1984.
Aquaculture and hydroponics (Score:5, Interesting)
Also am reminded of an old pulp sc-fi short story that took the form of letters between a Mars bio-dome colonist and the manufacturer of the living bio dome system... they kept adding critters to the dome to try and balance the eco-system, with predictable and silly results.
The next step (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Aquaculture and hydroponics (Score:3, Interesting)
I always remember what one of my biology professors said about these sort of biodome experiments: "life finds a way to live, unless it doesn't but either way, there is only one way to find out." What he meant was that those experiments should go on until they are so unbalanced that they threaten the human occupants with imminent death, but those without human occupants should be allowed to run until everything dies. The reason is that nature can surprise you with the way things adapt and you often learn the most when the pressures are the highest or fall apart.
Re:The next step (Score:4, Interesting)
Cats in zero G? It's been done [youtube.com].
I imagine the ISS would be shredded all the way to the cold, dead vacuum of space about an hour after the arrival of the first catstronaut.
Re:My question is: (Score:4, Interesting)