London: British scientists claim to have successfully sent worms on a mission to space to test how they deal with the travel as well as to understand how humans could respond to the rigours of inter-planetary journeys. A team at the University of Nottingham, which sent Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny worm found in rubbish tips, to the International Space Station, says that not only did the insects remain healthy throughout their sixmonth-long mission but they produced 24 generations of offspring in orbit. The scientists say the research is partly to understand how astronauts would be affected by extended journeys, such as a two-year trip to Mars, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported. In fact, Caenorhabditis elegans were deployed for the 200-mile journey because it shares more than 20,000 genes with humans and its muscles and central nervous system work in a similar way. When the survivors — worms only live for a few weeks — returned to Earth to be studied, the scientists found they showed normal development movement, feeding patterns, and the capacity to reproduce.