A group of Hudson Valley students will have the honor of seeing their hard work blast into space.

The high school scientists have been selected by the Student Space Experiments Program to have their experiment sent into orbit. As part of a program conducted by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, the students' work will be included in the SSEP's Mission to the International Space Station.

The five students include Raphael Senterfit-Sanjuan, Zola Campisi, Avis Roszko, Tucker Sheahan and Jessica Amato all from Red Hook High School. Out of nearly 13,000 students, these Hudson Valley students were selected to conduct their experiment in space.

Red Hook Central Schools
Red Hook Central Schools
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According to the students' teacher, Deborah Beam, the project is aimed at studying the effects of microgravity on bone porosity and muscle deterioration. The group decided to utilize brine shrimp because they're easy to keep in a confined test tube and the experiment requires little work on the part of the astronauts who will be looking after it.

Another reason the team chose brine shrimp is that they're commonly referred to as Sea Monkeys. Tucker Sheahan explained that he and his classmates just couldn't resist the temptation to send "monkeys" into space.

I’m into monkeys ever since I was born and I used to play with sea monkeys... When Ms. Beam gave us the assignment I thought to myself, ‘How can we get monkeys into space’ so the only choice was to go with brine shrimp and send them into space and see how they do in microgravity.

Red Hook Central Schools
Red Hook Central Schools
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The project is currently scheduled to launch into space on Mission 17 sometime at the end of the year and remain on the space station for six weeks. Afterward, the students will be able to retrieve the brine shrimp and study the results.

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