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Added August 30, 2021
SpaceX launches ants, avocados, robot to space station, ABC News, August 29, 2021
"A SpaceX shipment of ants, avocados and a human-sized robotic arm is on its way to the International Space Station. A recycled Falcon rocket blasted off early Sunday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida."
"The Dragon is carrying more than 4,800 pounds (2,170 kilograms) of supplies and experiments, and fresh food including avocados, lemons and even ice cream for the space station’s seven astronauts."
"The Girl Scouts are sending up ants, brine shrimp and plants as test subjects, while University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists are flying up seeds from mouse-ear cress, a small flowering weed used in genetic research. Samples of concrete, solar cells and other materials also will be subjected to weightlessness."
NASA has sent a long list of animals into space.
See: Animals in Space, Wikipedia
"Animals in space originally served to test the survivability of spaceflight, before human spaceflights were attempted. Later, other non-human animals were flown to investigate various biological processes and the effects microgravity and space flight might have on them."
ISS National Laboratory, December 18, 2017
Ants in Space
"In 2014, astronauts in orbit and scientists on the ground studied the behavior of pavement ants in microgravity and Earth gravity. The ants can explore a new environment efficiently without needing a leader to direct them. Understanding how the ants do this is useful for improving distributed computer networks."
Avocados and ice cream blasted into space for hungry astronauts, Euronews, August 29, 2021
"The Dragon is carrying more than 4,800 pounds (2,170 kilograms) of supplies and experiments, and fresh food including avocados, lemons and even ice cream for the space station’s seven astronauts."
My Comments
The purpose of the research on ants is to investigate how they move, communicate, and search in microgravity. The ants moved mainly to the edges of the containers probably looking for a way to get out of their confined area. Earth-bound ants usually navigate free-range using pheromones they and other ants deposit on soil or sand, not on hard, slippery plastic. They also probably navigate using the sun and stars, another factor missing from the recent ants experiments.
Because NASA probably will repeat the ants in space research, to the tune of millions of dollars, what was the cost per avocado for that orbiting guacamole culinary indulgence?
I have a suggestion: Along with the ants, send into space a tree and several buckets of soil. I think the ants would like that.
NASA experiments on plants and animals in space almost always leave out the important factor of radiation in space. In my high school, many moons ago, we had a tool that could irradiate plants in varying controlled amounts. The students, me included, would irradiate grass seeds and a variety of flower seeds to differing extents. The results always showed the more radiation the smaller and unhealthy the plant.
Conclusion
There are plenty of ants that could be studied on Earth. I am not sure if it is useful to send ants into space. Perhaps someone could fabricate for them small ant space suits. The ants sartorially equiped could be sent to Mars where they could be released and go about what is their main talent which is building ant hills.
Updated March 15, 2021
Looking at the 1955 Walt Disney design for Tomorrowland rockets, there's a striking similarity between the 1955 Disney design and the 2021 SpaceX Starship SN10 rocket.
Tomorrowland:
https://youtu.be/fTGa8HIsoyg?t=405
SpaceX Starship SN10
The image on the left side is from Disney Tomorrowland in 1955, and the image on the right is an image of a current 2021 SpaceX Starship SN10 rocket.
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