Animals in space mice, rats, frogs, newts, fruit flies, snails, carp, medaka, oyster toadfish, sea urchins, swordtail fish, gypsy moth eggs, stick insect eggs, brine shrimp ("Artemia salina"), quail eggs, and jellyfish aboard Space Shuttles. The last flight of "Columbia" in 2003 carried silkworms, garden orb spiders, carpenter bees, harvester ants, and Japanese killifish (medaka). Nematodes ("C. elegans") from one experiment were found still alive in the debris after the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster. "C. elegans" are also part of experiments aboard the International Space Station as well as research using quail eggs. Earlier shuttle missions included grade school, junior high and high
Space Shuttle retirement to 2028 or beyond. Until another U.S. crew vehicle is ready, crews will access the ISS exclusively aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The Soyuz was chosen as the ISS lifeboat during the development of the International Space Station, and has been one of the space taxis used by the international participants to this program. A Soyuz took Expedition 1, which included one U.S. astronaut in the year 2000. Previously the United States and Russia had collaborated on extended the Mir space station with the Shuttle-Mir program in the 1990s. Although the Orion spacecraft is oriented towards deep-space missions such as