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 program Space Shuttle program The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System (STS), was taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. The Space Shuttle—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank—carried up to eight astronauts and up to of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its