Posted by tourdemars to Mars Society at September 24, 2002 12:00 PM

The world’s first mammalian births in space are expected to occur during a $US15 million project to blast-off in 2005 and involving Australian and US universities. Four of the crew members on the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Project are expected to give birth on Day 10 of the 49-day mission, which is expected to yield valuable data for human exploration of Mars. The project is expected to be the longest unmanned orbital free flight biological experiment ever attempted. After The Mars Society put forward the concept in 2001, students from The University of Queensland’s Centre for Hypersonics engaged with groups at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Washington (Seattle). They are designing, building and operating a low-earth orbiting spacecraft supporting the world-first experiment.