In the aftermath of the Columbia tragedy, attention has rightfully focused on the human loss. Seven courageous astronauts died, leaving behind seven spouses, thirteen children, hundreds of friends and several nations that mourn them. But scientists and NASA are also contemplating the loss of other living things that burned up on reentry — various life science experiment samples, from spiders and ants to cancer cell cultures and moss — a treasure trove of results from more than a dozen life science experiments.

Although grief over the human loss is still painfully fresh, debate over the value of such research in space has already begun. STS-107 was the first shuttle mission in a long while devoted exclusively to research, and was to be the last before such work was shifted to the International Space Station. Countless editorials and news stories have appeared in recent days questioning whether space-based research is even worthwhile, particularly at the cost of human lives.

"Sending humans through takeoff so they can study spider behavior in weightlessness is crazy," Charles Krauthammer wrote in a Feb. 4 Washington Post editorial. "It produces very little science."

Such judgments are highly subjective, but regardless, the Columbia disaster will unquestionably have a profound effect on the future of life science research in space. The most extreme possibility would be a complete, permanent grounding of the Shuttle fleet. That doesn't appear to be in the cards, as President Bush has already voiced his support for a continuation of the program after a suitable investigation. The President reaffirmed his support for space science in his 2004 budget request released Monday, which includes a 12.3 percent increase to a total of $924 million for NASA's Biological and Physical Research science program.

A more realistic possibility will be a gradual phase-out of manned experiments in favor of remote-controlled robotic science launches. Conceivably most of the Columbia experiments (except for those that involved direct study of the astronauts' physiology) could have been done without human contact.

Such a move towards automated experiments was already in progress, said Diana Jennings, administrator of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Space Life Sciences at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

"NASA has been stressing experiments that can be performed automatically more and more," she told The Scientist. "It's cheaper and easier when it can be done. The biggest drawback is technology. It's very difficult to design technology that will work in microgravity. It almost never works the way it should. That's the main reason we still need humans up there."

The samples also still have to be brought back to Earth, Jennings noted. And there's no other way to do that without the space shuttle.

Even if experiments could be completely automated, we would be missing the point of science, said Karl Hasenstein, a biology professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, whose plant experiment was lost on the Columbia. "You can't replace a human being's ability to observe and conclude. No robot can do that," he said. Science isn't something that can be preplanned and then let loose, explained Hasenstein. It's a dynamic process of adjustment and repair that needs a person's eyes, hands and brain to function properly. "Anyone who says we can do the same work without astronauts misses the whole point of science."

Hasenstein hopes that NASA will decide to try his experiment one more time. His study involved subjecting flax seedlings to magnetics to determine if their amyoplasts could substitute magnetic fields for gravity in deciding the direction in which they would grow. The astronauts planted the seeds, watered them and oversaw the download of some digital images. However, he said that those images aren't enough to conclude or publish anything.

"Every indication was that the experiment worked very well, but we needed the actual samples and those were lost," Hasenstein said. He wants to get another chance at doing the experiment. "Out of courtesy and respect for the crew it should not be done immediately," added Hasenstein, who got to know the astronauts personally while preparing the experiment. "It should not be done just for the science. I hope we can pursue their dreams."