HISTORICALLY THE STUDY OF POLYMERIC MATERIALS HAS BEEN CHARACTERIZED BY THE PREVALENCE OF SHEAR FLOW OVER ELONGATIONAL FLOW EXPERIMENTS. THIS DISPARITY MIGHT BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE RELATIVE DIFFICULTY OF CONDUCTING ELONGATIONAL EXPERIMENTS RATHER THAN TO THE LACK OF RELEVANCE IN THE POLYMER COMMUNITY. IN FACT ELONGATIONAL FLOWS HAVE MANY APPLICATIONS IN INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES AS WELL AS IN THEORETICAL AND NUMERICAL RESEARCH AS THEY PROVIDE A DISCRIMINATING TEST FOR MODELS AND THEORIES. IN THIS REGARD THE DATA PROVIDED BY THE SHERE SHERE II AND SHERE-R EXPERIMENTS OFFER A UNIQUE ADVANTAGE BY ELIMINATING TWO OF THE MAIN DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN EARTHBOUND ELONGATIONAL FLOW EXPERIMENTS: GRAVITY AND THE INABILITY TO OBSERVE THE EVOLUTION OF THE FLOW AT LONG TIME SCALES. THE CAPILLARY THINNING EXPERIMENTS PERFORMED IN THE ISS CONSIST OF STRETCHING A PIECE OF FLUID PLACED BETWEEN TWO DISKS AND LETTING SURFACE TENSION DRIVE THE FLUID MOTION. THE SHERE FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS FURTHER INVESTIGATE AND QUANTIFY FOR THE FIRST TIME THE TRANSIENT EXTENSIONAL STRESS GROWTH CHARACTERISTICS OF A DILUTE POLYMER SOLUTION AFTER A DEFINED PRESHEAR HISTORY. THE SHERE DATA REVEALED THAT THE EXTENSIONAL VISCOSITY TENDS TO DECREASE WITH AN INCREASING DEGREE OF PRE-SHEAR FOR FIXED EXTENSION RATE. SIMILARLY A GENERAL TREND THAT WAS OBSERVABLE WAS A SYSTEMATIC REDUCTION IN EXTENSIONAL VISCOSITY WITH INCREASING EXTENSION RATE FOR FIXED PRESHEAR CONDITIONS. THIS IS AN EFFECT THAT HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN FILAMENT STRETCHING EXPERIMENTS PERFORMED IN 1-G CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION IS PARTICULARLY RELEVANT FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DEFORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF NON-NEWTONIAN THIN FLUID COLUMNS IN A WIDE VARIETY OF INDUSTRIES INCLUDING FIBER-SPINNING INJECTION MOLDING OR FOOD AND CONSUMER PRODUCT PROCESSING. ONE OF THE MAIN CHALLENGES IN THE MODELING OF VISCOELASTIC MATERIALS IS THE SELECTION OF AN APPROPRIATE CONSTITUTIVE MODEL. UNLIKE THE CASE WITH SIMPLE NEWTONIAN FLUIDS; THERE IS NOT AUNIVERSAL CONSTITUTIVE EQUATION CAPABLE OF DESCRIBING THE FLOW OF ALL VISCOELASTIC MATERIAL. IN CONTRAST WE ARE FACED WITH THE TASK OF DETERMINING WHICH EQUATION(S) DESCRIBES BEST A GIVEN MATERIAL AND/OR PROCESS. FINDING THE APPROPRIATE MODEL FOR A GIVEN MATERIAL IS A CRITICAL STEP IN BUILDING TRULY PREDICTIVE MODELING PLATFORMS THAT WILL ALLOW US TO SIMULATE CONDITIONS THAT ARE HARD TO ACCESS EXPERIMENTALLY. THE VALIDITY OF CONSTITUTIVE THEORIES FOR POLYMERIC MATERIALS HAS NOT YET BEEN CONFIRMED DUE TO THE LACK OF EXPERIMENTAL DATA OBTAINED IN EXTENSIONAL FLOWS. IN ORDER TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE UNIQUE SHERE DATA THIS WORK WILL PRESENT THE FIRST-EVER DETAILED ANALYSIS AND NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FILAMENT STRETCHING AND CAPILLARY THINNING WITH A PREDEFINED SHEAR HISTORY OF MODELS SPECIFICALLY DEVELOPED TO DESCRIBE DILUTE POLYMER SOLUTIONS. AS A FIRST LOOK A 1+1-D LAGRANGIAN FORMULATION OF THE MODELS WILL BE USED SIMILAR TO EARLIER WORK ON FILAMENT STRETCHING OF WORMLIKE MICELLES PERFORMED BY THE PI. THE PROPOSED PROJECTS INVESTIGATE THE EFFECTS OF A PRE-SHEAR HISTORY ON THE TRANSIENT EXTENSIONAL VISCOSITY IN A FILAMENT STRETCHING FLOW FOR A VISCOELASTIC MATERIAL USING DATA OBTAINED IN THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS) DURING THE SHERE SHERE II AND SHERE-R PROJECTS. ULTIMATELY THE SHERE EXPERIMENTAL DATA WILL PROVIDE A TESTING GROUND FOR THE VIABILITY AND ACCURACY OF EXISTING POLYMER CONSTITUTIVE THEORIES AND/OR PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO NEW DIRECTIONS.