In mid-March, NASA the researchers announced that they had found an unknown life form that was hiding aboard the International Space Station. And they were cool with that.
In fact, for an organization known for a sophisticated public communication strategy – rovers on Mars don’t write their own tweets, that’s what I’m saying – everyone has been pretty quiet about this discovery.
Close also Quiet.
It is true that the new life was not, say, a xenomorphic alien with blood acid. It was a new species of bacteria, unknown on Earth, but whose genes identified it as coming from a known terrestrial genus called Methylobacteria. Usually, its members like to sit among the roots of plants, not on the walls of space stations. However, you would think that a microbe probably-not-but-maybe-evolved-in-space would deserve something more frightening. Still, here we are. No one was exactly surprised – and the reasons why it could define the future of human space exploration.
As part of an ongoing research project into the microbial life of the ISS, astronauts on board in 2015 and 2016 took over various parts of the station and sent home the napkins they used. For the next few years, here on Earth, a team of researchers based in the biotechnology and planetary protection group of the jet propulsion laboratory isolated the microbes and sequenced their genes. One species, found on a HEPA filter in the station’s life support system, was a garden variety (literally!) Methylobacterium rhodesianum. But three samples – from an area near the materials shelf, a wall near the “dome” of the windows, and the astronauts’ dining table – were something new. The researchers leading the project named it M. ajmalii.
It wasn’t even the first time these researchers found a new bacterium in space. They have already found another unknown bacterium in that set of ISS samples – they published a paper on it in 2017. There is a chance that these bugs are, in a sense, extraterrestrial, evolved on the station. But it’s thin. Chances are they took a walk with cargo or astronauts, and the microbe hunters noticed them just because they were looking. “There are chances of 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, ”says Kasthuri Venkateswaran, the JPL microbiologist leading the project.
What’s more interesting, perhaps, is figuring out which bacteria are zero on Earth, but heroes in the rarefied, closed-loop environment of a spaceship. Therefore, studying the International Space Station’s microbiome – the bacteria, fungi and viruses that thrive on board – could be essential to the safety 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 could have some characteristics to withstand the conditions there,” says Venkateswaran. “The rest could have died. These are the things that survive. ”
The space is really quite unpleasant. Outside of a vessel or a vacuum suit, it would be a race to see if you died first from suffocation or lyophilization. (High levels of harsh radiation are more of a long-term switch.)
So the interior of these ships and suits must be closed systems. The only things that come and go are cargo and astronauts. But wherever people go, they bring their germs with them – in their courage, on the skin, in the nose and in the mouth. It’s true in your home and it’s true 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 air on the ISS 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 floor, but they don’t stay on the floor if there isn’t a floor,” says John Rummel, a former NASA planetary protection officer responsible for keeping aliens away from Earth. It smells not so fresh. inside the ISS and because it is full of corners where water droplets can float and then adhere to them, due to surface tension, it has a lot of places where microbes can stay.