First Space Spiders Arabella and Anita Spun Very Fine Webs for Skylab

Summary: First space spiders Arabella and Anita spun very fine webs for Skylab 3 mission, which operated July to September 1973 at the Skylab space station.

(left) steps in web formation by common cross spiders (Araneus diadematus) and (right) completed web; L.B. Summerlin, Skylab: Classroom in Space (1977), page 43: Public Domain, via NASA NTRS

First space spiders Arabella and Anita spun very fine webs for Skylab 3 mission, which was conducted from Saturday, July 28, to Tuesday, Sept. 25, 1973, as NASA’s second manned mission to Skylab, the first United States space station.

The two common cross spiders (Araneus diadematus) were transported to the Skylab space station as participants in experiment ED52, Web Formation in Zero Gravity. They were housed in separate transportation vials for the mission. They were assigned separate shifts in the experiment’s screened observation cage for web formation.

Arabella reported reluctantly for web-spinning duty first on Sunday, Aug. 5. The mission’s scientist-pilot, Owen Garriot (Nov. 22, 1930-April 15, 2019), had to resort to shaking Arabella’s vial in order to transfer her into the web-formation cage. The three webs that she completed between Monday, Aug. 6, and Wednesday, Aug. 22, reflected her trajectory from disorientation to orientation in weightlessness.

Arabella’s session in the web formation cage ended Sunday, Aug. 28. She mirrored her reluctant entry of Aug. 6 into the cage with a reluctant exit.

After Arabella’s return to her transportation vial, Anita’s vial was placed in position on the web formation cage. A videotape and 16 mm film recorded Anita’s public encounter with weightlessness. Skylab, Classroom in Space, edited by Lee B. Summerlin and published by NASA in 1977, noted: “She, too, had to be forcibly ejected from her vial and, in fact, had to be picked off Garriott’s arm before she could be induced to ‘swim’ into place on the side of her cage” (page 47).

As with Arabella, Anita adjusted to weightlessness. Her three successive webs attested to her confident transformation of the unfamiliar environment of weightlessness into a familiar, workable environment.

Unfortunately, Anita’s space journey ended Sunday, Sept. 16, when Garriott “. . . found her dead in the cage. The dead spider was transferred to her launch vial for return to Earth.”

Arabella also did not survive the mission. After splashdown Tuesday, Sept. 25, Arabella was found dead in her transportation vial.

Prior to the start of the Skylab 3 mission, Arabella and Anita had spun pre-flight webs to serve as controls for their in-flight webs. Marshall Space Flight Center’s (MSFC) Skylab Student Project Report, published by NASA in 1974, observed that after the mission’s completion: “Examination of the returned web samples indicated that the thread spun in flight was significantly finer than that spun pre-flight giving positive evidence that the spider utilized a weight sensing organism to size her thread” (page 43).

The MSFC Skylab Student Project Report noted the availability of “. . . 43 frames of 35mm film and several hundred feet of 16mm film (TV converted to film and conventional movie film) . . .” for analysis by the experiment’s student investigator, Judith S. Miles of Lexington, Massachusetts, and her MSFC science adviser, Raymond L. Gause (page 46). Pre-flight data included five web photographs, of which four were spun by Arabella and one was built by Anita, according to German pharmacologist Peter N. Witt (born 1918) and four co-authors in their Skylab 3 web experiment analysis, published in the Journal of Arachnology’s spring 1976 issue.

The MSFC Skylab Student Project Report described the steps taken by female common cross spiders to spin their daily, pre-dawn webs. The web starts with a rudimentary structure, a bridge and frame, to which radial threads are added. A temporary spiral emanating from the web’s hub, or central region, gives the gauge for the distance around the hub, which, in turn, informs “. . . the amount of silk required to complete the web and establishes the mesh size” (page 38). The web’s “sticky or catching portion” requires a construction of a signal thread in a “free section . . . from the spider’s retreat to the limb of the web” as a prey presence alert (page 38). The web’s elements generally comprise “30 to 40 radials and 25 to 35 spiral turns.” Dr. Witt et al. noted the spiders’ inclusion of prey traps even “under the very strange conditions of Skylab” (page 117).

The takeaways for first space spiders Arabella’s and Anita’s very fine web-spinning for the Skylab 3 mission are that the two common cross spiders considered weightlessness by resizing their threads and that their space webs’ inclusion of a sticky trap also conformed with their Earth webs’ prey-catching purpose.

“Anita proved that she, too, could produce almost Earth-like webs once she had adapted to weightlessness.”; L.B. Summerlin, Skylab: Classroom in Space (1977), page 49: Public Domain, via NASA NTRS

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

(left) steps in web formation by common cross spiders (Araneus diadematus) and (right) completed web; L.B. Summerlin, Skylab: Classroom in Space (1977), page 43: Public Domain, via NASA NTRS @ https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740025164.pdf

“Anita proved that she, too, could produce almost Earth-like webs once she had adapted to weightlessness.”; L.B. Summerlin, Skylab: Classroom in Space (1977), page 49: Public Domain, via NASA NTRS @ https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740025164.pdf

For further information:

Burgess, Colin; and Chris Dubbs. Animals in Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle. Springer-Praxis Books in Space Exploration. Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing Ltd., 2007.

Caswell, Kurt. Laika's Window: The Legacy of a Soviet Space Dog. San Antonio TX: Trinity University Press, 2018.

Hitt, David; Owen Garriott; and Joe Kerwin. Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story. Featuring the In-Flight Diary of Alan Bean. Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
Available via Google Books @ https://books.google.com/books/about/Homesteading_Space.html?id=sR5Cm_zeIekC

Kelly, Michelle. “Alan L. Bean Oral History Interviews.” NASA Johnson Space Center History Portal > NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. June 23, 1998.
Available @ https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/BeanAL/beanal.htm

Marriner, Derdriu. “Arabella and Anita Spun First Space Webs in August 1973 at Skylab.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, July 31, 2013.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/07/arabella-and-anita-spun-first-space.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “First Web in Space Was Spun in 1973 by Common Cross Spider Arabella.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/08/first-web-in-space-was-spun-in-1973-by.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Fourth Moonwalker Alan Bean Commanded Skylab 3 July to September 1973.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, July 22, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/07/fourth-moonwalker-alan-bean-commanded.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Owen Garriott and Jack Lousma Did Second EVA Aug. 24, 1973, at Skylab.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/08/owen-garriott-and-jack-lousma-did.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Skylab 3 Astronaut Wives Pranked Spouses With Unofficial Mission Patch.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, July 15, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/07/skylab-3-astronaut-wives-pranked.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Skylab 3 Captured Dramatic Solar Prominences in August 1973." Earth and Space News. Wednesday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/08/skylab-3-captured-dramatic-solar.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Skylab 3 Mission Patch Emphasized Earth, Sun and Medical Themes.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, July 8, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/07/skylab-3-mission-patch-emphasized-earth.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Skylabbers Owen Garriott and Jack Lousma First Spacewalked Aug. 6, 1973.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/08/skylabbers-owen-garriott-and-jack.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Two Mummichog Minnows Became First Fish in Space in 1973 Via Skylab 3.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, July 29, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/07/two-mummichog-minnows-became-first-fish.html

NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. “C. Zoology. 1. ED52 -- Web Formation.” MSFC Skylab Student Project Report: 38-46. NASA Technical Memorandum TM X-64866. NASA Skylab Program Office. August 1974.
Available @ https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740025164.pdf

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. “Web Formation -- Skylab Student Experiment ED-52.” Jan. 1, 1973.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/MSFC-9513727

Summerlin Lee B., ed. Skylab, Classroom in Space: 41-48. Prepared by George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA SP-401. Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scientific and Technical Information Office, 1977.
Available via NASA NTRS (NASA Technical Reports Server) @ https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770022245.pdf

Witt, Peter N.; Mabel B. Scarboro; Rubenia Daniels; David B. Peakall; and Raymond L. Gause. “Spider Web-Building in Outer Space: Evaluation of Records From the Skylab Spider Experiment.” Journal of Arachnology, vol. 4, issue 2 (Spring 1976): 115-124.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/52939706

Zahl, Paul A. “What’s So Special About Spiders?” National Geographic, vol. 140, no. 2 (August 1971): 190-219.