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云烟太空种子返回高原　 1月 1 4日 ,昆明卷烟厂厂长从云南航天管理局局长手中接过在太空飞行了 2 1 h的 1 0 g云烟种子。这 1 0 g云烟种子于去年 1 1月搭乘我国第 1艘试验飞船神舟 - 1成功进入了太空 ,这是云南第 1次把自己的农产品种子送上太空 ,也是我国的烟草种子首次在太空进行太空育种试验。利用高新技术对烟草种子进行太空处理探索试验 ,目的是通过太空的特殊环境 ,激发烟草种子产生诱变 ,力争使处理的烟种获得一些有益的品质变异。有关专家分析 ,烟种在真空、微重力和强辐射的太空条件下 ,会有效地改变叶绿体、亚纤维结构和植株株型…     

食用太空食品安全吗？

航天育种技术是一种培育优良种子的新技术。是通过返回式卫星把农作物的种子带到太空环境当中，利用太空微重力、太空辐射、无空气等特殊环境，对种子诱发变异，返回地面选育新品质、新材料，培育出优质高产的新品种，从而在更大范围内促进农作物增产和农业持续发展。     

1990年中国返回式卫星的微重力水平监测

叙述了1990年中国返回式卫星采用的微重力测量系统概况、微重力测量数据的处理方法、微重力测量结果与分折。指出:这是国内首次空间微重力水平监测;研制的JS05-1A 微重力测量仪动态精度优于4μg,响应时间6ms,达到了国际同类仪器的先进水平;该仪器为指导优化空间晶体生长的微重力环境及了解卫星工作状况提供了有力手段。通过对该卫星微重力水平监测所获得的73505对数据进行分折,发现有效载荷动作是影响卫星微重力水平的主要因素,为10~(-4)g 量级;有效载荷不动作时,除1.23%的时间存在10~(-4)g量级不明干扰外,有97.6%的时间微重力的绝对值小于4×10~(-5)g,仅O.3%的时间在10~(-4)g 量级。     

美欲发射第2枚星火火箭

美国空间服务公司计划在今年11月发射第2枚星火火箭,进行商业性亚轨道微重力试验任务。第一枚星火火箭是在3月29日发射的。空间服务公司现经营三种型号的星火探空火箭,并计划再增加两种或更多型号的火箭。星火-1火箭可载454公斤有效载荷,微重力时间为5分钟;它若载90公斤有效载荷,微重力时间可达9分钟。有效载荷用降落伞回收。星火-1型为两级火箭,第一级用的是莫顿·锡奥科尔公司的TX664发动     

载人深空探测任务的空间环境工程关键问题

对载人深空探测过程中将遭受的太阳宇宙射线、银河宇宙射线、微重力、尘与尘暴、深空微生物等环境进行分析。对不同深空环境给航天员带来的威胁进行了探讨。从物理屏蔽防护、辐射风险的监测和预警、辐射防护药物、航天员选拨等角度对采取的措施进行了阐述。从空间辐射对航天员的损伤机理、抗辐射和微重力药物开发、空间辐射屏蔽防护结构与材料、航天服自清洁、抗微生物侵蚀材料的研发等多个角度对需要进一步开展的工作进行了讨论。     

空间材料加工所需微重力水平估算

本文从微重力定义出发,论述了微重力物理效应在流体中发生的原因,并由此把微重力物理效应分成一级和二级效应两类。建立了各类空间村料加工和微重力物理效应的联系,并分别给出发生各类微重力物理效应所需的微重力水平估算。     

中国为何发展载人航天

充分利用空间环境资源 传统意义上的资源是上地、矿藏、水利等.人类进入地球轨道和外层空间后发现,太空的特殊环境和条件也是人类可以利用的重要资源,浩瀚无垠的太空具有高运的位置高真空、高洁净、无污染、微重力、强宇宙粒子射线辐射,是地面所不县备的及其宝贵的资源,这种得天独厚的太空环境对发展空间工业有着远大的潜在开发前景,其中空间微重力环境的开发和利用尤其重要。开发和利用空间环境资源必须有人的参与才行,因此需要发展载人航天。     

返回式卫星的华丽“转型”——我国首颗微重力实验卫星研制记

正作为我国首颗微重力科学实验卫星,实践十号卫星的使命是开展空间科学实验,研究、揭示微重力条件和空间辐射条件下物质运动及生命活动规律,这不仅具有较大的社会效益和经济效益,而且对推进我国空间领域的科学探索也有重要的意义。"及时雨"实践十号诞生恰逢其时提到返回式卫星,大家并不陌生,到2006年为止,我国共成功进行了24次返回式卫星的发射。通过这些任     

中国微重力科学研究回顾与展望

微重力科学主要研究微重力环境中物质运动的规律,以及不同重力环境中重力对物质运动的影响.中国微重力科学研究起步于20世纪60年代,兴起于80年代中后期,经过多年发展,目前已初具规模,在一些重要方向具有明显特色和一定优势.本文回顾了中国微重力科学研究的早期历程,评述了近年来中国微重力科学研究进展,特别是利用实践十号科学实验卫星、天宫二号空间实验室等空间平台开展的微重力科学与技术应用研究取得的最新成果,并对中国载人空间站时代微重力科学发展的前景予以瞻望,推动微重力科学与应用研究在中国的快速、可持续发展.      

空间在轨流体输运稳定性落塔实验

空间流体管理是微重力流体科学的重要研究方向之一,而有外力驱动的开口流道毛细流动界面稳定性研究是其重要的内容.设计研制了一种微重力双流道流体输运实验装置,采用的两个流道分别为截面相同的对称内角和非对称内角,并有相同的开口长度,在百米微重力落塔进行了10次双舱实验.通过分析不同流量下的液面特性,判定流动的类别,将流动形态分为亚临界、临界和超临界三种,确定了两个流道的临界流量,并对两个流道毛细流动的特征进行了比较.      

Mutagenic effects of heavy ion radiation in plants.

Genetic and developmental effects of heavy ions in maize and rice were investigated. Heavy particles with various charges and energies were accelerated at the BEVALAC. The frequency of occurrence of white-yellow stripes on leaves of plants developed from irradiated maize seeds increased linearly with dose, and high-LET heavy charged particles, e.g., neon, argon, and iron, were 2-12 times as effective as gamma rays in inducing this type of mutation. The effectiveness of high-LET heavy ion in (1) inhibiting rice seedling growth, (2) reducing plant fertility, (3) inducing chromosome aberration and micronuclei in root tip cells and pollen mother cells of the first generation plants developed from exposed seeds, and (4) inducing mutation in the second generation, were greater than that of low-LET gamma rays. All effects observed were dose-dependent; however, there appeared to be an optimal range of doses for inducing certain types of mutation, for example, for argon ions (400 MeV/u) at 90-100 Gy, several valuable mutant lines with favorable characters, such as semidwarf, early maturity and high yield ability, were obtained. Experimental results suggest that the potential application of heavy ions in crop improvement is promising. RFLP analysis of two semidwarf mutants induced by argon particles revealed that large DNA alterations might be involved in these mutants.     

Charged-particle mutagenesis II. Mutagenic effects of high energy charged particles in normal human fibroblasts.

The biological effects of high LET charged particles are a subject of great concern with regard to the prediction of radiation risk in space. In this report, mutagenic effects of high LET charged particles are quantitatively measured using primary cultures of human skin fibroblasts, and the spectrum of induced mutations are analyzed. The LET of the charged particles ranged from 25 KeV/micrometer to 975 KeV/micrometer with particle energy (on the cells) between 94-603 MeV/u. The X-chromosome linked hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase (hprt) locus was used as the target gene. Exposure to these high LET charged particles resulted in exponential survival curves; whereas, mutation induction was fitted by a linear model. The Relative Biological Effect (RBE) for cell-killing ranged from 3.73 to 1.25, while that for mutant induction ranged from 5.74 to 0.48. Maximum RBE values were obtained at the LET of 150 keV/micrometer. The inactivation cross-section (alpha i) and the action cross-section for mutant induction (alpha m) ranged from 2.2 to 92.0 micrometer2 and 0.09 to 5.56 x 10(-3) micrometer2, respectively. The maximum values were obtained by 56Fe with an LET of 200 keV/micrometer. The mutagenicity (alpha m/alpha i) ranged from 2.05 to 7.99 x 10(-5) with the maximum value at 150 keV/micrometer. Furthermore, molecular analysis of mutants induced by charged particles indicates that higher LET beams are more likely to cause larger deletions in the hprt locus.     

On the quality of mutations in mammalian cells induced by high LET radiations

The deleterious effects of accelerated heavy ions as component of the space radiation environment on living cells are of increasing importance for long duration human space flight activities. The most important aspect of such densely ionizing particle radiation is attributed to the type and quality of biological damage induced by them. This issue is addressed by investigating cell inactivation and mutation induction at the Hprt locus (coding for hypoxanthine-guanine-phosphoribosyl-transferase) of cultured V79 Chinese hamster cells exposed to densely ionizing radiation (accelerated heavy ions with different LETs from oxygen to gold, specific energies ranging from 1.9 to 69.7 MeV/u, corresponding LET values range from 62 to 13,223 keV/μm) and to sparsely ionizing radiation (200 kV X-rays). 30 spontaneous, 40 X-ray induced and 196 heavy ion induced 6-thioguanine resistant Hprt mutant colonies were characterized by Southern technique using the restriction enzymes EcoRI, PstI and BglII and a full length Hprt cDNA probe isolated from the plasmid pHPT12. Restriction patterns of the spontaneous Hprt mutants were indistinguishable from the wild type pattern, as these mutants probably contain only small deletions or even point mutations in the Hprt locus. In contrast, the overall spectrum of heavy ion induced mutations revealed a majority of partial or total deletions of the Hprt gene. With constant particle fluence (3 × 10⁶ particles/cm²) the quality of heavy ion induced mutations in the Hprt locus depends on physical parameters of the beam (atomic number, specific energy, LET). This finding suggests a relationship between the type of DNA damage and track structure. The fraction of mutants with severe deletions in the Hprt locus after exposure to oxygen ions increases from 65% at 60 keV/μm up to a maximum (100%) at 300 keV/μm and declines with higher LET values to 75% at 750 keV/μm. With heavier ions (Ca- and Au-ions) and even higher LET-values this mutant fraction decreases to 58% at 13,200 keV/μm. Heavy ion induced DNA break points in the Hprt locus are not randomly distributed.     

Recent results of comparative radiobiological experiments with short and long term expositions of arabidopsis seed embryos

Comparison of experimental data obtained from short (SDEF) and long duration exposure flights (LDEF) recently led to results, which will contribute for the estimation of genetic risk for long and/or repeated stay of man in space. Under orbital conditions biological stress and damage are induced in test subjects by cosmic radiation, especially the high energetic, densely ionizing component of heavy ions. Plant seeds were successful model systems for a biotest in studying the physiological damages and mutagenic effects caused by ionizing radiation in particular stem cells. In this article we present an overview of our space experiments with Arabidopis thaliana seeds. We present first results of investigations on certain damage endpoints (seed germination, plant survival, mutation frequencies), caused by cosmic ionizing radiation in dry dormant plant seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana after different short term (e.g. IML-1 and D-2) and long term (e.g. EURECA and LDEF-1) space exposures. Total dose effects of heavy ions and the other components of the mixed radiation field on damage endpoints and survival after space exposure and gamma-ray preirradiation were obtained. A new method of total dose spectrometry by neutron activation has been applied.     

Comparison of genotoxic damage in monolayer cell cultures and three-dimensional tissue-like cell assemblies

Assessing the biological risks associated with exposure to the high-energy charged particles encountered in space is essential for the success of long-term space exploration. Although prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell models developed in our laboratory and others have advanced our understanding of many aspects of genotoxicity, in vitro models are needed to assess the risk to humans from space radiation insults. Such models must be representative of the cellular interactions present in tissues and capable of quantifying genotoxic damage. Toward this overall goal, the objectives of this study were to examine the effect of the localized microenvironment of cells, cultured as either 2-dimensional (2D) monolayers or 3-dimensional (3D) aggregates, on the rate and type of genotoxic damage resulting from exposure to Fe-charged particles, a significant portion of space radiation. We used rodent transgenic cell lines containing 50–70 copies of a LacI transgene to provide the enhanced sensitivity required to quantify mutational frequency and type in the 1100-bp LacI target as well as assessment of DNA damage to the entire 45-kbp construct. Cultured cells were exposed to high-energy Fe charged particles at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Alternating Gradient Synchrotron facility for a total dose ranging from 0.1 to 2 Gy and allowed to recover for 0–7 days, after which mutational type and frequency were evaluated. The mutational frequency was found to be higher in 3D samples than in 2D samples at all radiation doses. Mutational frequency also was higher at 7 days after irradiation than immediately after exposure. DNA sequencing of the mutant targets revealed that deletional mutations contributed an increasingly high percentage (up to 27%) of all mutations in cells as the dose was increased from 0.5 to 2 Gy. Several mutants also showed large and complex deletions in multiple locations within the LacI target. However, no differences in mutational type were found between the 2D and the 3D samples. These 3D tissue-like model systems can reduce the uncertainty involved in extrapolating risk between in vitro cellular and in vivo models.     

Effects of heavy ions on visual function and electrophysiology of rodents: the ALTEA-MICE project.

ALTEA-MICE will supplement the ALTEA project on astronauts and provide information on the functional visual impairment possibly induced by heavy ions during prolonged operations in microgravity. Goals of ALTEA-MICE are: (1) to investigate the effects of heavy ions on the visual system of normal and mutant mice with retinal defects; (2) to define reliable experimental conditions for space research; and (3) to develop animal models to study the physiological consequences of space travels on humans. Remotely controlled mouse setup, applied electrophysiological recording methods, remote particle monitoring, and experimental procedures were developed and tested. The project has proved feasible under laboratory-controlled conditions comparable in important aspects to those of astronauts' exposure to particle in space. Experiments are performed at the Brookhaven National Laboratories [BNL] (Upton, NY, USA) and the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung mbH [GSI]/Biophysik (Darmstadt, FRG) to identify possible electrophysiological changes and/or activation of protective mechanisms in response to pulsed radiation. Offline data analyses are in progress and observations are still anecdotal. Electrophysiological changes after pulsed radiation are within the limits of spontaneous variability under anesthesia, with only indirect evidence of possible retinal/cortical responses. Immunostaining showed changes (e.g. increased expression of FGF2 protein in the outer nuclear layer) suggesting a retinal stress reaction to high-energy particles of potential relevance in space.     

Biological features of an early-maturity mutant of sweet sorghum induced by carbon ions irradiation and its genetic polymorphism

It is well known that heavy ions irradiation is characterized by a high linear energy transfer (LET) and relative biological effectiveness (RBE). These characters are believed to increase mutation frequency and mutation spectrum of plants or mammalian cells irradiated by heavy ions. Here we describe an early-maturity mutant of sweet sorghum induced by carbon ion irradiation. The growth period of this mutant was shortened by about 20 days compared to the wild type. The proline content of the mutant was increased by 11.05% while the malondialdehyde content was significantly lower than that of wild type. In addition, the RAPD analysis indicated that the percentage of polymorphism between the mutant KFJT-1 and the control KFJT-CK reached 5.26%. The gain of early-maturity might solve the problem in the northwest region of China where seeds of sweet sorghum cannot be mature because of early frost. The early-maturity mutant may be important for future space cultivation.     

Morphological and molecular changes of maize plants after seeds been flown on recoverablf satellite

Dry seeds of Zea mays, heterozygous for Lw₁/lw₁ alleles, sandwiched between nuclear track detectors aboard Chinese satellite for 15 days, were recovered and mutations in morphological characters on plants developed from these seeds, as well as their selected progenies, were investigated. The dosimetric results indicated that 85% of the seeds received at least 1 hit with Z≥20. About 10% of plants developed from flown seeds and 40% of observed selfed lines from the first generation plants showed some morphological changes, such as yellow stripes displayed on leaves, dwarf, anomogensis of floral organs and yellow-green seedlings, when compared with those from ground control. Using yellow stripes on leaves as the main endpoint for evaluating mutation induced in space environment, the frequency of stripe occurrence was 4.6% in the first generation plants, comparable with the results obtained from Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) mission (Mei et al., 1994), but much lower than those from ground based ⁶⁰ Co-gamma treatment at a dose of 100 Gy, which reached 35.5% in the selfed lines of the second generation. One hundred and ten random primers were screened in RAPD analysis to detect the variation on genomic DNA of plants with stripes on leaves. Of these primers, 10.9% were able to generate polymorphic bands between mutated plants and control, also, common band patterns in several progenies with the same mutation phenotype were observed. These results demonstrated that space radiation environment could induce inheritable mutagenic effects on plant seeds, and verified the change in genetic material in the mutants. Further study will be needed for a better understand of the nature and mechanism of this induction of mutation.     

远东地区的微粒E层事件

本文给出了1983-1985年磁暴期间,我国乌鲁木齐等七个站及日本国分寺等五个站出现微粒E层的情况;得到了微粒E层的日变化、月变化和纬度变化;结合同时的地磁、宇宙线、TEC和电离层的变化,对微粒E层出现率作了分析。初步证实:微粒E层的形成和维持与赤道环电流指数(Dst)负变幅大小密切相关,此外还同宇宙线的FD(Forbushdecreases)事件的出现有关。作者认为,沉降粒子可能是低纬地区微粒E层事件的主要粒子来源。      

A ground-based study for a shuttle BRIC experiment on gravity effects on gene expression.

A BRIC (Biological Research In a Canister) experiment to investigate the effects of reduced gravity at the molecular level using Arabidopsis has been initiated. In preparation for a space flight experiment, a series of ground-based studies were conducted. Results from these studies indicate that: 1) up to 20,000 seeds can be germinated on a 100 mm diameter Petri plate, 2) nylon membrane is the best surface for recovery of plant material after freezing, 3) depending on the age of the seedlings at the time of freezing, 20 to 40 g of tissue can be obtained from Petri plates that fit in a single canister; 4) tissue from one canister yields adequate amounts of RNA to perform differential display to isolate gravity-regulated genes. Our results indicate that the proposed BRIC experiment is feasible and can provide valuable information on the possible effects of microgravity on gene regulation.