North Rochester, New York high school student, Robert L. Staehle, is greeted by (left to right): Astronauts Russell L. Schweickart, and Owen K. Garriott; Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Skylab Program Manager, Leland Belew; and MSFC Director of Administration and Technical Services, David Newby, during a tour of MSFC. Staehle was among 25 winners of a contest in which some 3,500 high school students proposed experiments for the following year’s Skylab mission. The nationwide scientific competition was sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The winning students, along with their parents and sponsor teachers, visited MSFC where they met with scientists and engineers, participated in design reviews for their experiments, and toured MSFC facilities. Of the 25 students, 6 did not see their experiments conducted on Skylab because the experiments were not compatible with Skylab hardware and timelines. Of the 19 remaining, 11 experiments required the manufacture of additional equipment.

Robert L. Staehle (center), high school student from Harley School, Rochester New York, talks with Steven Hall (advisor to Staehle) and Henry Floyd, both of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) about his experiment “Behavior of Bacteria and Bacterial Spores in the Skylab Space Environment”. He was one of the 25 winners of a contest in which some 3,500 high school students proposed experiments for the following year’s Skylab mission. Of the 25 students, 6 did not see their experiments conducted on Skylab because the experiments were not compatible with Skylab hardware and timelines. Of the 19 remaining, 11 experiments required the manufacture of equipment.

Pictures 1 and 2 show samples of Bacillus Subtillus grown during the first performance of Robert Staehle's experiment (ED-31) aboard Skylab. Pictures 3 and 4 show colonies of the same bacteria that developed during the second performance of the experiment. The experiment ED-31 was proposed by Robert L. Staehle of Rochester, New York to determine the effect of the Skylab environment (particularly weightlessness) on the survival, growth rates, and mutations of certain bacteria and spores.

This chart describes the Skylab student experiment Bacteria and Spores, proposed by Robert L. Staehle of Rochester, New York. This experiment was intended to determine the effect of the Skylab environment (particularly weightlessness) on the survival, growth rates, and mutations of certain bacteria and spores. In March 1972, NASA and the National Science Teachers Association selected 25 experiment proposals for flight on Skylab. Science advisors from the Marshall Space Flight Center aided and assisted the students in developing the proposals for flight on Skylab.