978-1-4222-3418-1

The Scientists and Their Science 1

magine if you were a scientist . . . and your laboratory was 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth. That’s the case for many of the men and women who have lived and worked on American space shuttles and at the International Space Station (ISS, shown at left). Sci- ence is a major reason for space exploration, so scientists need to go where the action is! On space shuttle missions and on the ISS, scientists of all kinds work in zero gravity. They perform experiments in many branches of science, learning how humans can live in space. Some of the things they have learned while working as astronauts have helped make life on Earth better.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND cosmonauts  space travelers from the Soviet Union or Russia meteorology  the study of weather physicist  a scientist who studies physics, which exam- ines how matter and energy move and relate

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