Visitors to an exhibit from NASA coming to Ames can launch into space from a parking lot.

NASA’s International Space Station Trailer Exhibit is coming to the Iowa State Center May 22-27.

The interactive exhibit, titled “Space Station Imagination,” displays how astronauts live and work in a space station, according to the Iowa Space Grant Consortium’s Web site (cosmos.ssol.iastate.edu/isgc). Two 48-foot semi-trailers will house examples of the space station’s features.

The ISS Trailers Exhibit is traveling from Sioux City, Iowa to New York as a part of the NASA Days program. This program brings space exhibits to mid-size cities lacking easy access to museums.

Carmen Fuchs, secretary of the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, said Ames seemed a likely place to stop since it was on the way.

According to the Iowa Space Grant Consortium’s Web site, groups can walk through the Habitation Model, where astronauts live for the duration of their stay on-board the International Space Station (ISS). The most curious questions will be answered, such as how astronauts shower in space. An example of the bathroom facilities will also be featured.

The U.S. Destiny Lab Module provides examples of the experiments astronauts perform while on board the ISS, according to the Johnson Space Center’s Web site (www.jsc.nasa.gov). A model of the centrifuge displays how astronauts study the effects of varying levels of gravity on plants, animals and materials.

On May 24-25, NASA Astronaut and Iowa native Peggy Whitson will give lectures to K-12 students and the general public. According to the Iowa Space Grant Consortium’s Web site, Whitson returned from her first voyage into space this past December. She performed experiments in the human life sciences and microgravity while aboard the ISS with the Expedition Five mission.

Jay Staker, youth development specialist for Extension-Science, Engineering and Technology said he is primarily responsible for arranging the exhibit’s visit.

“Whitson has done research on soybean growth in space, similar to experiments done by kids in Iowa,” Staker said.

Staker said Whitson has lectured in the past about her work and role on the ISS.

She performed the first soybean plant growth experiment ever done in space, he said. This research is important, Staker said, for future food production in space.

Whitson also completed commercial payloads, according to NASA’s Web site. Payloads, an integral part of the ISS endeavors, are scientific research interests composed by the Payload Operations Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The center serves as a science command post relaying international scientific inquiries to the astronauts aboard the ISS.

In the last of a set of emails she sent while she was in space, she commented on the importance of international cooperation culminating in the work the ISS produces.