Clamps keeping separate the contents – dirt, seeds and water – of a test tube will be removed while at the International Space Station, to see whether or not tomatoes could grow on Mars. What started as a science project by three senior students at Lamar Academy in McAllen – Sabrina Benitez, Sofia Escobar and Juan Pablo Flanagan – ended up being selected among hundreds by the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program to be sent to space as part of Mission 9. “We have soil, water and a fixative,” Benitez said, explaining the contents of a tube similar to the one that will be sent off.