Posted by tourdemars to Mars Society at May 6, 2002 12:00 PM

A bold collective, including three universities and the Mars Society, recently announced its plans to launch a "crew" of mice into orbit. The project's goal is to study the long-term effects of being born and living in a low-gravity environment like that on the Red Planet. Dubbed the Mars Gravity mission, the endeavor is part of the Mars Society's Translife Initiative to develop a support structure for a martian settlement. Student researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Washington – Seattle, and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, will team up to design various sections of the spacecraft and its payload. The mission also has an advisory board composed of representatives from the three universities, the Mars Society, and NASA's Ames Research Center.