Chips ahoy!

Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, a member of Expedition 32 to the International Space Station (ISS), poses with a floating display of components of the HiMassSEE experiment. The package at lower left (marked with a Rice logo, inset) contains silicon oxide based memory chips designed under the direction of Rice professors James Tour, Doug Natelson and Lin Zhong. The chips will remain on the station for two years to test their ability to hold a pattern when exposed to radiation in space. The chips were launched as part of a Russian cargo mission to ISS that launched and arrived Aug. 1. Photo by NASA