(WINSTON-SALEM) -- The final space shuttle mission is underway and researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have an experiment on board. Doctors in the Radiation Oncology department are looking at the effect weightlessness on joints.

Dr. Jeff Willey says that its known that astronauts lose bone during spaceflight because of the decreased load put on the skeleton. They're using mice to see how weightlessness and the loss of bone affects the knee joint.

He says joint cartilage can erode and cause osteo-arthritis, which could effect astronauts and an entire space mission. Dr. Willey will be going to the Kennedy Space Center next week to retrieve the mice and get a look at the tissue in their knees.