Gravitational biology on Mir.

The focus of this paper is to describe the experiences of a first time Space Life Sciences Principal Investigator. The Mir Beetle experiment was developed as a result of the joint US-Russian Mir Program. Dr. Alexei Alpatov collaborated as the Russian Co-Investigator. This experiment examined the long term effects of microgravity on the biological clock of a desert-dwelling beetle, Trigonoscelis gigas. The performance of this Space Life Sciences investigation involved: developing the proposal, design and testing of the hardware and execution of the spaceflight experiment.