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GAS G-616: The Effect of Cosmic Radiation on Floppy Disks

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GAS G-616: The Effect of Cosmic Radiation on Floppy Disks

'G-616: Carried on Shuttle Columbia mission STS-40'
NASA's Getaway Special (GAS) canisters are installed on the GAS bridge in shuttle cargo bay for experiments in materials science, plant biology and cosmic radiation
'GAS canister # G-616: The Effect of Cosmic Radiation on Floppy Disks & Plant Seeds Exposure of Microgravity.'
The G-616 canister contained two experiments by Redlands Unified School District(space donated by a local company).
''Seeds in Space Experiment:'' Several thousand seeds were flown and returned to teachers and students for growth and observation in classroom. (the author has no information on results of this experiment)
''Disks in Space'' was created by the GATE (exceptional student's class) at Franklin Elementary School with the help of their teacher, Mary C. Bailey, and her husband Ray L. Bailey (technical consultant).
The class used Apple IIE computers with 5 1/2" floppy disks. They speculated on the effects of Cosmic Radiation on magnetic data (this is before the days of laptop use on the shuttles). Five new disks were formatted: one master disk (yellow) and four flight disks (red). Each student provided a program or file for the master disk which was copied to the four flight disks. A utility was run to analyze the disks providing a data map of each disk. The disks were then sent to NASA for packing.
The project was renamed "The Effects of Cosmic Radiation on Floppy Disks" to satisfy the need for a more professional sounding loadout title (as per Charles Kim, NASA's GAS NTM manager) After approval of the load by NASA Flight Assurance Team, and with some delay, the canister was scheduled for STS-40 as GAS item G-616.
After the flight, the disks were returned to the class. Since over a year had elapsed the class did not have the same students. The disks were analyzed and compared to the original data. Disk D3 had one error while D1, D2, and D4 were clean.
The class decided that one error was not enough to verify the premise as too many variables were unaccounted for including the accuracy of the school's computer disk drives, and the possible shielding of the shuttle bay. However the students were excited and grateful for the opportunity to fly an experiment on the space shuttle.
The disks now reside with the technical consultantRay L. Bailey
20:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Other Articles

Getaway Special
STS-40

External Links

★ NASA STS-40 mission summary

★ Mission Detail Kit in PDF format. See page 81 Item 11

★ Mission Safety Assurance Report. G-616 payload listing. See page 2-6

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