Elementary schoolers prove EpiPens become toxic in space — something NASA never knew

Cubes in Space is a global STEM education program offered by iEDU in collaboration with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center - Wallops Flight Facility and NASA's Langley Research Center and in partnership with SSAI.

Our program provides the opportunity for students, ages 11-18, the opportunity to engage in science and research by designing and proposing experiments to the Cubes in Space program. If the experiment concepts are selected, students build their experiments to find inside a ~4x4x4 cm plastic container. These experiments are launched on a sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Experiments are also launched to near space on a large scale, high altitude balloon from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility - Ft. Sumner, New Mexico location.

Educators deliver the program and teach students about suborbital science science and engineering concepts through an integrative STEAM-learning approach.

We are excited to fly this experiment again this summer for the students to repeat the testing to determine if they can receive repeatable results.

Visit www.cubesinspace.com to learn more and to also see what other research students in our program conduct.
 
This is so cool. How did the kids get the idea to test epipens in space?
The students and their teacher are part of the Cubes in Space program, an iEDU program offered in collaboration with NASA and in partnership with SSAI. If the students' experiment concept is selected through several design reviews, we fly their experiments on a NASA sounding rocket in June from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

The Cubes in Space program is not currently accepting educator registration. However, October 2023 is the beginning of the 10th year of our program and when we accept new registrations.

We are tremendously appreciative of NASA's Sounding Rocket Program Office and NASA's Balloon Program Office for their support in providing students the opportunities to conduct real scientific research and engineering.
 
Mar 10, 2023
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Hold up. Something obviously went wrong with this experiment. Cosmic radiation isn't going to damage every single molecule of epinephrine in one of these cubes while leaving other cubes entirely untouched. A single photon of cosmic radiation can only do so much damage, either a single damaged molecule acts as a catalyst for all the rest to break down into the same new molecule (which is unlikely) or some other factor was at play (the bad cubes weren't sealed properly, or maybe some of the cubes were never epinephrine to begin with). I doubt anyone involved in the project will read this post, though, so I'm looking forward to seeing the kids "succeed" or "fail" on their protective design based on whether the cubes have the same problem during the next test.
 
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Mar 11, 2023
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Im a little confused by the disparity in these two statements:

"...only 87% contained pure epinephrine."

Then further down:

"...no epinephrine was found in the 'after' EpiPen solution samples."

I must be missing something?
 
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Mar 13, 2023
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Im a little confused by the disparity in these two statements:

"...only 87% contained pure epinephrine."

Then further down:

"...no epinephrine was found in the 'after' EpiPen solution samples."

I must be missing something?
I logged in to make this same rely. Also when They say only 87% was remaining. Are they talking about 87% of the epinephrine solution in each one or 87% of the number of EpiPens (which doesn't seem likely)? It's all very unclear especially when you then consider the latter paragraph, you mentioned, about saying that no epinephrine was found.
Don't get me wrong. I think this is really cool and I think it's an awesome program. I wish I could have been a part of something like this when I was that age.
It seems that the person writing this article didn't pay very close attention and is doing an injustice to this program and these students, as we are all focusing on the errors in the the article versus the achievement and other interesting factors of what these students are learning.
 
Mar 13, 2023
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This article seems to have a lot of inconsistencies that you can read about in the other comments (I'm guessing most of the inconsistencies and errors are from poorly written/edited writing, than it is from the programs actual study).

Another question that is noticed was that they stated that the cubes are 4x4 inch cubes, and EpiPens range from 5 and 1/2 to 6 inches depending on the manufacturer and the length of the needle.

So I'm guessing they they actually just tested epinephrine and not EpiPens. Also, what is the material that these boxes are made of? Does it block cosmic radiation? If they didn't test actual EpiPens than they can account for how much the EpiPen casing, springs, and mechanics itself would protect the medication if at all.

I will say this, that is this is a great program and I genuinely wish I could have been part of something like this when I was in grade school..