It sounds like a grade-B sci-fi movie. But Monarchs in Space is a real project, where live caterpillars will be going up in the next space shuttle (scheduled for launch Nov. 16) and taken to the International Space Station (ISS) where they will be reared to adulthood.

I only found out about this last week, on Bug Girl's Blog. The program is geared toward schools, and requires registration and a fee, and the raising of monarch caterpillars in containers, with artificial food.

I don't want all that. I don't need to raise a caterpillar in a container. I have them in my yard, for goodness sake! I just want to follow the monarch caterpillars on their journey into space! I want to see what happens to them. Is there a way I can do that? I looked on the Nasa Space Shuttle webpage, and couldn't find anything about Monarchs in Space. I emailed Monarch Watch, who are involved with this project, to ask how I can follow it as an individual, and was sent a useless form letter reply.

Then, I saw there is a Monarch Watch message board, so I registered and sent them this message. Let's see what happens....