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Forgetting (Or Not Knowing) What NASA Has Done

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 12, 2009
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Keith’s note: I just got a media advisory from Griffin Marketing (the folks behind the Coalition for Space Exploration) offering an interview opportunity with “Thomas Pickens, III, Chairman of the Board, and John Porter, CEO, Astrogenetix, regarding payload on board STS-129”. The advisory states: “Astrogenetix is the first commercial space company to use microgravity to develop new medicines and vaccines.”
I had to read the advisory several times to make certain that I had read it properly. I guess those involved in the generation of this advisory are unaware of McDonnell Douglas and Johnson & Johnson work on space biotech with an eye toward therapeutics back in the 1980’s (Charlie Walker flew on 3 shuttle missions – see image), work that Genetech did on shuttle missions, and work that Larry DeLucas and his commerical partners did with regard to protein crystallography, on-orbit research that Amgen and Bioserve did – all with a clear, firm interest in developing therapeutics. And this is just a partial listing. I’d add links, but anyone can find them if they spend a few minutes on Google.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.