As Ukraine faces Russian invasion and the US grapples with supporting Ukrainian defenses, we bring to Wednesday Night at the Lab insights and memories about a close working relationship among UW-Madison and Ukrainian scientists and educators from a 1997 NASA-funded collaborative project. Both global and local in scope, this talk recalls the serendipitous events leading up to a Ukrainian and US collaboration in space research and education. Dan Lauffer recalls and presents the story of roles played by UW-Madison, NASA, and Ukrainian scientists in a shared, large-scale project, involving Wisconsin Fast Plants and experiments in space. Situated during the end of the Cold War, this collaboration entwined facets of politics, plant sciences, and high school science learning across Ukraine and the United States.
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