From the Bremen Drop Tower to the international space station ISS – Ways to weightlessness in the German space life sciences program

Investigations on the effects of gravity on living systems, especially the perception and transduction of this important environmental parameter, are in the focus of the German Space Life Sciences Program since several years. This program is managed – like all other space activities – by the German Aerospace Center DLR in its role as the German Space Agency. Funding of scientists, placing contracts to industry for the development of necessary space research facilities, and providing flight opportunities for performing space experiments including international coordination with other space agencies are the main responsibilities of the agency. In the present contribution the special features of the various flight opportunities, which are made available by DLR for life sciences research, are described in some detail. By this, scientists should become aware of the interesting possibilities to perform space research in the frame of the German Space Life Sciences Program, while other contributions in this special publications will focus on the results obtained, especially in the area of gravity signal transduction.