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The International Space Station Is Home To Potentially Dangerous Bacteria (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: There's a little known, dirty story about the International Space Station (ISS): It's filled with bacteria and fungi. A new study has found compelling evidence that microorganisms from human skin are present throughout the station, and some of the bugs could cause serious harm to astronauts.The most concerning finding was from the "high-efficiency particulate arrestance" (HEPA) air filter used in the ISS: 99.65% of the viable sequences they retrieved came from Actinobacteria. The Actinobacteria phylum includes Corynebacterium and Propionibacterium; each genus was found in the ISS samples at a high level, which is "problematic," say the researchers, because they both have species that are opportunistic pathogens. Astronauts who live in microgravity for prolonged periods also can have compromised immune systems.
Its not like the thing just launched.
anyone ever seen a fish bowl? No matter how clean you get it there is always gunk buildup. The ISS is like a fish bowl, a closed system. as such of course there will be higher risks for pathogens.
the real question is are the filters doing their jobs??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
There's a little known, dirty story about Earth: It's filled with bacteria and fungi. A new study has found compelling evidence that microorganisms from human skin are present throughout the planet, and some of the bugs could cause serious harm to humans.
Unfortunately much of the ISS is protected against harmful radiation. Some of the harmful radiation is very damaging to micro organisms..
I don't know much about the station's air filtration and purification. It may be time to introduce some UVA and UVB into the station to control the growth. This will both directly kill many as well as generating some ozone.
As the environment is adding food, and has no effective breakdown in place (soil), outbreaks taking advantage of the food source will be a normal cycle.
Cleaning to remove the food and colonies and population control with UV and ozone are options.
The truth shall set you free!
Doesn't intense UV light kill those sorts of bacteria? Generally speaking, I understand that the effectiveness of UV filtration of air is reduced with moving air flow (since effectiveness is a function of time and UV intensity), but on a space station, the same air is going to be re-circulated many thousands of times, so you have the advantage of repeated passes.
Would that not be effective, or was NASA simply under the impression that a HEPA filter would be adequate for the job?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
So basically, the ISS is like a Super 8 motel room, but in space and without the complimentary cable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
By the time it reached end-of-life, the first space station became famous for hosting fungus mats of an unknown species:
http://www.straightdope.com/co...
Any reason they couldn't add these LED sterilizers, either to the air filtration system, or to the lighting system of the station? Maybe take a room offline for 24 hours every week or so to sterilize.
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/ug...
A sad ending to a really possible endeavor but bacteria got in the way. And Conquered!
Oh Yea. NASA MARS MISSION: ... can you smell dat smell ... the smell of death is around you!
Oh dat smell
Yes. The Heroes NASA to MARS, just DOA, ... Dead On Arrival. Ha ha
Ha ha
Famously good.
Not one of KSR 's better books but really does well describing micro climates and fishbowl living in space.
Summary - generational starship falling apart due to micro organisms
It's a big trailer that they've been living in for years, and you can't just air the place out. This seems like the expected outcome. Consider this part of the experiment. If it's really causing a deterioration of air and/or surface cleanliness vs. Earth-bound standards, fix it. Whatever solution you come up with might have applications for terrestrial hospitals, or other things we haven't thought of yet.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
My refrigerator is home to potentially dangerous bacteria and fungi.
I think what's in the vegetable crisper drawer may even be of alien origin.
I read the article,
Isn't this the kind of accidental byproduct we're supposed to discover about leaving planet Earth? We should find organisms like this, as we co-habit thing objects that we built with our flawed understanding of everything.
Not scary, but worth investigating.
Can we retire the word "problematic" already? Anytime someone uses it, I instinctively tune out anything said afterward.
We stick people in it. People are full of bacteria. Some of that bacteria can be bad for you if it ends up in the wrong place. At which point did any of this become surprising? I kinda want to slap the researchers on the back of the head...
They should have pre-treated the surfaces where this stuff can grow with something like Biocote or some other silver or copper infused coating. These coatings work quite well at killing bacteria without being harmful to humans.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
"The Actinobacteria phylum includes..." OMG I'm scared! Except that biology classification is a bit over-broad...
Let's review what badasses *our* phylum includes:
- The honey badger.
- The Kodiak bear.
- The goddamned T-Rex.
- that Japanese guy who killed bulls with nothing but karate
In a phylum-off, I'm betting on Team Chordata.
I know it can't reach into the crevices and what not, but would a UV "wand" be effective in eliminating a lot of surface dwelling bacteria? They could make a little roomba on a tether with a UV spot light that slowly goes around exposing surfaces to strong UV.... We have UV filters in aquariums that seem to do a decent job killing pathogens...
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
All they need to do is section off areas of the station and expose them to ozone on a rotating basis. Come on NASA why is this a hard problem for you?
If astronauts' immune systems suffer ill effects due to microgravity, I wonder: Are they more at risk of infection due to these bacteria while in the space station, or after they are exposed to the Earth environment again just after they get back home?
Whatever solution you come up with might have applications for terrestrial hospitals, or other things we haven't thought of yet.
Like bringing up something that eats the bacteria and fungi?
Repeat until you have a functional ecosystem going.
The same happed to Mir.
"There are places you wouldn't want to stick a hand in." Kosmonauts were quoted.
The fascinating thing is that fungi are actually quite resillient and also can survice in a vacuum.
I'd guess that the environment in a space station favours fungi more than anything else.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Is this really a problem?
These two species are part of a reasonably normal skin flora.
Corneybacterium minitussimum is ubiquitous and sometimes can cause a mild flexural rash, pitted keratolysis, trichomycosis axillaris (treated by shaving!), etc.
The skin propionibacterium? P. acnes. Contributes to acne.
Someone save them!
(Sorry for any spelling errors, I'm typing from memory.)
Another excuse NASA can add to its existing long list of excuses for not going to Mars. Another thing to research (to 'prepare for a Mars mission') that will result in lots of money spent, PhDs and backslapping with zero practical application.
Open it to the vacuum! Scrub it with Listerine! Call Sigourney Weaver! We wouldn't want our astronauts getting acne. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Or, the horror!, erythrasma--which is how most people might encounter a Corynebacterium species.
Dammit Jim, I'm an Astronaut not a maid, get someone else to clean the station.
Maybe some Mexicans want to take a longer route into the US.
Since the Internet is good at supplying useful data, I looked up the two bacterial subgroups that they mentioned in the summary. The only risk from one of those was diphtheria, a pathogen everyone is inoculated for as a child and I'm sure gets boosted before the astronauts go to space. And as others have noted, the fungi is harmful to the ISS structural and other systems, but can be mediated.
So, yawn. Wake me when something actually interesting happens.
It seems to me like the best possible way to clean a space station would be to use a steam vapor cleaner. The environmental systems have to already be designed to deal with water vapor in the air, and the steam vapor cleaner uses no chemicals other than water, which would be recycled. A good steam vapor cleaner doesn't get things very wet... the steam is very hot.
I wonder whether they can afford the power to make steam... I don't know how much spare power they have from the solar power system. Maybe future space station designs could have a built-in steam cleaning system that uses solar power to directly heat the steam.
I bought a steam vapor cleaner, coincidentally because I wanted to use it to kill some mold. It worked perfectly for that purpose. I got a Vapamore MR-100 and I would buy it again.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Maybe it's time to free up a spot and send a maid to clean things.