In mid-March, NASA the researchers announced that they had found an unknown way of life that was hiding aboard the International Space Station. And they were fine with that.
In fact, for an organization known for a sophisticated public communication strategy (Mars rovers don’t write their own tweets, that’s what I’m saying), everyone was pretty quiet about this discovery.
Almost too quiet.
It is true that the new life was not, for example, a xenomorphic alien with acid for blood. It was a new species of bacteria, unknown on Earth, but whose genes identified it as coming from a known terrestrial genus. Methylobacteria. Normally its members like to spend time among the roots of plants, not on the walls of space stations. Still, you’ll think a microbe probably not-but-maybe-evolved-in-space would deserve a little more freaking out. However, here we are. No one was surprised exactly and the reasons why he could define the future of human space exploration.
As part of an ongoing research project on the microbial life of the ISS, astronauts on board in 2015 and 2016 swept various parts of the station and sent home the wipes they used. For the next two years, here on Earth, a team of researchers based in the Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group of the Water Propulsion Laboratory isolated microbes and sequenced their genes. One species, found in a HEPA filter in the station’s life support system, was a garden variety (literally!) Methylobacterium rhodesianum. But three samples — from a surface near the materials research rack, a wall near the “dome” of the windows, and the astronauts’ dining table — were something new. The researchers who led the project named it M. ajmalii.
It wasn’t even the first time these researchers found a new bacterium in space. They had already found another unknown bacterium in this set of ISS samples; they published an article in 2017. There is a possibility that these errors are, in a sense, alien, evolving in the station. But he is thin. Most likely they were hooked on the cargo or astronauts, and the microbe hunters only noticed because they were looking. “There are possibilities for evolution in space, no doubt, but the space station is so young. He is only 20 years old. The bacteria may not have evolved in that time period, ”says Kasthuri Venkateswaran, the JPL microbiologist who runs the project.
Perhaps most interesting is figuring out which bacteria are zeros on Earth, but heroes from the closed, rarefied looping environment of a spaceship. Therefore, studying the microbiome of the International Space Station — the bacteria, fungi, and viruses that thrive on board — can be critical to the security of missions to Mars or permanent bases in other worlds. As on Earth, human health in space will depend in part on a healthy microbiome and a good relationship with the microbiome of the ship or shelter. “We can say that the new species carried by the crew may have some characteristics to withstand the conditions,” Venkateswaran says. “It simply came to our notice then. These are the things that survive. “
The space is really quite unpleasant. Outside of a boat or a vacuum suit, it would be a race to see if you first drowned or freeze-dried. (High levels of hard radiation are more than a long-term break).
Therefore, the interior of these ships and suits should be closed systems. The only things that come and go are cargo and astronauts. But wherever people go, they carry their microbes along the way, to the gut, to the skin, to the nose and to the mouth. This is true in your home, and on the ISS. But the ISS is not like your home, and not just because it recycles air and water and you can’t open the windows. The ISS air is drier, with higher levels of carbon dioxide. Radiation levels are higher. There is no gravity to speak of. (“We’re used to certain types of microbes staying on the ground, but they don’t stay on the ground if there’s no floor,” says John Rummel, a former NASA planetary protection officer responsible for keeping aliens off Earth. ) Its life on Earth is out of place.) It doesn’t smell so cool on the ISS, and because it’s full of nooks and crannies where water droplets can float and then adhere, thanks to surface tension , has many places where microbes can hang out.