Representatives from SPACEHAB and SPACEHAB subsidiary, Space Media™ , Inc. recently descended upon the students from Syracuse's Fowler High School for a three-day intensive 'critical design review' of Fowler's 'ants in space' experiment.

As part of the Space Technology And Research Students (S*T*A*R*S™ ) Program, the ants experiment is expected to yield results showing the effects of weightlessness on the insects' health and behavior during a future space shuttle mission.

During the three-day event, partners including SPACEHAB, Space Media™ , Inc., and Colorado-based Bioserve spent time with the students working out the particulars of the upcoming mission and of the students' experiment. Congressman James Walsh, in continued support of the STARS Fowler project, was also in attendance and expressed his encouragement and well wishes to the group of ambitious future scientists and engineers. Congressman Walsh is the Chairman of the House subcommittee that appropriates funding for NASA, and in his ongoing interest in the S*T*A*R*S™ program, helped facilitate the partnership between SPACEHAB and Syracuse University for the ants in space experiment.

The Fowler experiment is one of six 'Super Nova' experiments scheduled for flight on next year's STS-107 mission. Super Nova schools design and develop experiments to actually fly in space, tracking their progress via the Internet.

For more on the S*T*A*R*S™ program, visit www.starsprogram.com.