Science operations continue on the International Space Station.
Basic and applied research is being conducted in biology,
physics, chemistry, ecology, medicine, materials science,
manufacturing and the long-term effects of space flight on
humans. During the past week, the Expedition Six crewmembers,
Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolay Budarin and NASA
Station Science Officer Don Pettit, completed several sessions
in support of the Human Research Facility (HRF). The HRF is a
floor-to-ceiling, facility-class rack located in the Station's
Destiny laboratory. It is designed to support human life science
investigations, such as the Pulmonary Function in Flight (PuFF)
experiment. The PuFF experiment evaluates how the lungs function
in space. Little is known about how the lungs can be affected by
long-term exposure to microgravity like the near-weightlessness
inside the Space Station. The science data recorded from
previous life sciences experiments was beamed down to a team at
NASA's Johnson Space Cente