On the challenges of integrating science education and space flight experiments

The NASA Small Self-Contained Payloads Program provides an opportunity to involve students in the definition and development of space-flight experiments. The program offers an opportunity to emphasize and incorporate the basic sciences in the experiment development process. The program organization, approaches for defining an experiment, and the program methodology are described. The experiment development framework emphasizes the need for a strong basic science background and leads naturally to scientifically meaningful experiments