title: Recognizing and optimizing flight opportunities with hardware and life sciences limitations.
abstract: The availability of orbital space flight opportunities to conduct life sciences research has been limited.  It is possible to use parabolic flight and sounding rocket programs to conduct some kinds of experiments during short episodes (seconds to minutes) of reduced gravity, but there are constraints and limitations to these programs.  Orbital flight opportunities are major undertakings, and the potential science achievable is often a function of the flight hardware available.  A variety of generic types of flight hardware have been developed and tested, and show great promise for use during NSTS flights.  One such payload configuration is described which has already flown.
authors.affiliation: Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309-0429.
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Luttges
mesh_terms: D000401:Aircraft; D001690:Biological Science Disciplines / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012107:Research Design; D013026:Space Flight / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018531:Spacecraft; D014893:Weightlessness