Many people will remember the flight of the space shuttle  Challenger , in June, 1993.The achievement of Sally Ride, America's first woman astronaut to fly into space, made this flight especially memorable.Students from two high schools in Camden, New Jersey, however, are likely to remember Norma rather than Sally whenever they think about the flight. Norma didn't travel alone.She brought about 100 companions along with her.Norma was an ant, a queen ant who, with her subjects, made up the first ant colony   to travel into space.The ants were part of a science experiment designed by the students to test the effects of weightlessness on insects. The equipment designed by the students for their colony functioned perfectly throughout the long space trip.The young scientists and their teachers were very sad to find that their insect astronauts had all died at some point before the container was returned to the school and opened.The problem did not occur in space, but on the ground after Challenger had landed.The container remained in the desert for nearly a week before the ant colony was removed.The hot, dry desert air dried out the colony's container and the ants died from lack of moisture  . The project was termed a success because it did provide useful information.Students will continue their efforts to find out exactly what went wrong.They will try to prevent the same difficulties from recurring   on future missions .They don't want to be discouraged either by the death of the ants or by the $10,000 shuttle fare they will have to pay to send the next colony of ants into space. The story is mainly about_.
Sally Ride's first ride space equipment for insects a space experiment with ants going to school in New Jersey