Biology and Medicine in Space. Research Opportunities offered by Spacelab. Invitation to European Investigators. Edited by Hilding Bjurstedt, First Chairman of ESA Life-Sciences Working group (1974-1977).

Paris: European Space Agency, August 1979. Tall quarto, 56 pages. Original yellow wrappers printed in black and white, stapled. Illustrations and diagrams throughout the text. With two copies of the original order form loosely inserted, one having been cut off at the halfway line for posting. Wrappers lightly rubbed and toned at the edges, with some mild spotting to the lower edge of the upper wrapper. Excellent condition. First and only edition of this uncommon volume on the biological research opportunities offered by Spacelab, the modular laboratory planned for the Space Shuttle as a joint project of NASA and the ESA. The lab was designed as a collection of components that could be used in various configurations according to the needs of each flight. There were twenty-two major Spacelab missions between 1983 and 1998, with individual components flying on a number of other missions. The contents explain the areas of opportunity for biologists and medical researchers in orbit, including human calcium metabolism, the cardiovascular system, the senses, and the musculoskeletal system, cell and developmental biology, microbiology, botany, radiobiology, the effects of cosmic rays on organisms, the role of gravity in organogenesis and behaviour, bioengineering, the origin of life on earth, and whether life can exist in other parts of the universe. As the introduction explains, this volume represents "an invitation to biological, medical, and behavioural investigators in Europe to participate in the planning and execution of experiments in the Spacelabs of the 1980s. These manned, earth-orbiting laboratories will offer a working environment which is biologically unique in its absence of effective gravity, a condition which cannot be produced on earth. Spacelab heralds a new era of opportunity for investigating problems of a fundamental nature, making possible a better understanding of life processes on earth".