back to article Mutant space germs threaten International Space Station

Everything that goes to the International Space Station gets clean-roomed to within an inch of its life, but humans are leaving behind a considerable microbial footprint. That's the finding of research conducted by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and it's a serious problem, because one of the health impacts of a stint on the …

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  1. jake Silver badge

    Whatever.

    Healthy humans will survive.

    1. PleebSmash
      Thumb Down

      Re: Whatever.

      The healthy, yet immune-compromised humans of the ISS will survive?

      1. jake Silver badge

        @ PleebSmash (was: Re: Whatever.)

        "immune-compromised humans of the ISS"

        Post proof or retract.

        1. Anonymous Coward
        2. Graham Marsden
          Facepalm

          @jake - Re: @ PleebSmash (was: Whatever.)

          RTFA: "one of the health impacts of a stint on the ISS is a suppressed immune system."

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @jake - @ PleebSmash (was: Whatever.)

            I think you're mistaking Jake for someone who comes here for the articles

    2. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Whatever.

      High "survivability" is in fact the definition of "healthy" for organisms.

  2. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    Morning Boss,

    I can't come in today; I've got a bad attack of Space Cheeses.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: Morning Boss,

      You can get rid of Space Cheeses more easily if you remember to bring the Space Crackers.

      1. x 7

        Re: Morning Boss,

        You can get rid of Space Cheeses more easily if you remember to wash the underpants more often

  3. Allan George Dyer

    Start treating the ISS as what it is...

    an enclosed ecosystem. Instead of pretending everything can be sterilised, manage the ecological balance.

    Obligatory xkcd.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: Start treating the ISS as what it is...

      Everything can be sterilised - you just need to nuke it from orbit...

      1. The entire Radio 1 playlist commitee

        Re: Start treating the ISS as what it is...

        ... its the only way to be sure

      2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Devil

        Re: Start treating the ISS as what it is...

        Everything can be sterilised - you just need to nuke it from orbit...

        Two problems with this statement.

        Firstly, what happens if the item you're trying to nuke is already in orbit? Surely you now need to take off and nuke it from the next solar system. It's the only way to be sure.

        Secondly, I've seen the documentary Godzilla. Sometimes when you nuke things, they just get bigger, and angrier.

  4. Chemist

    Don't know what they expected.

    Humans can't be clean roomed to the same degree, organisms multiply & filters concentrate. No-one on the ISS ever had a cold, flu or GI upset ?

    As an example I worked in a building with forced air ventilation, After Chernobyl, although the local levels of radiation were only transiently raised, the ventilation filters were quite noticeably radioactive having purified many building volumes of outside air every 24hrs.

    1. Graham Marsden

      Re: Don't know what they expected.

      > Humans can't be clean roomed to the same degree

      See The Andromeda Strain for details...

      1. x 7

        Re: Don't know what they expected.

        " Humans can't be clean roomed to the same degree

        See The Andromeda Stain for details..."

        went out with a girl called Andromeda once........very dirty girl, always stained the sheets......

  5. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Boffin

    Opportunistic pathogens

    are simply bacteria that are harmless under most circumstances, and happily coexist with us on our skin or in our bowels. Only when there is serious suppression of the immune system can they become a problem (i.e. when there is an opportunity). It should come as no surprise that these creatures were found, and I would go along with the advice on the cover of the book

    "What book?"

    "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

    "Oh, that hack rag"

    1. Marc 25

      Re: Opportunistic pathogens

      So what happens if you're planning to spend a long time in space, I dunno, lets say 6 years? Your immune system could become pretty suppressed by then, and that insignificant cold could be come a killer.

      If you're going to spend billions of dollars sending a manned ship to another planet, you kinda want the crew to arrive in top health and not crawling for the lemsip.

      I don't understand though, why does the immune system get suppressed in spaaaaace?

      1. Chemist

        Re: Opportunistic pathogens

        "I don't understand though, why does the immune system get suppressed in spaaaaace?"

        Don't have a ready answer to that although I do know all sorts of biological systems seem to be affected by weightlessness + ?. In particular calcium metabolism/mobilization. Calcium levels have a direct and profound effect on lots of systems in the body.

        Given the complexity of the immune system and the known effects of various interventions I'd think it might be quite a time before all of the possible effects might be know.

        One, rather obvious one, given that sitting on top of a giant firework is in the job description is stress. This is known to have +ve & -ve effects on the immune system.

      2. Roger Greenwood

        Re: Opportunistic pathogens

        " why does the immune system get suppressed in spaaaaace? "

        Because on earth your system is constantly at war fighting off new threats and evolves with the bugs. What happens to your muscles if you don't exercise? The bugs continue to change at home even if you aren't there.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Opportunistic pathogens

          "Because on earth your system is constantly at war fighting off new threats and evolves with the bugs."

          On the spacecraft that brought me to this hell hole of a planet, we always bring a few shovels of dirt from the home world up with us and throw them around the spacecraft just to be sure. And we make sure our ships are infected with our version of rats & cockroaches too, just to sweeten the sauce.

          As one of our philosophers who once had a human named Nietzsche as a slave always said, "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.

          1. x 7

            Re: Opportunistic pathogens

            "And we make sure our ships are infected with our version of rats & cockroaches too"

            you won't starve then.

      3. nijam Silver badge

        Re: Opportunistic pathogens

        > I don't understand though, why does the immune system get suppressed in spaaaaace?

        Probably because there aren't enough pathogens there to keep it functioning correctly, in turn because of the delusion that you can claen-room everything.

      4. TitterYeNot

        Re: Opportunistic pathogens

        "I don't understand though, why does the immune system get suppressed in spaaaaace?"

        Long term exposure to microgravity can cause all sorts of interesting effects due to changes in the distribution of fluids throughout the body, such as causing poor eyesight because of increased intra-ocular pressure in the eyes. I imagine a lack of gravity could play merry hell with circulation of lymph in the lymphatic system, which is a vital part of the immune system.

      5. Tom 13

        Re: Your immune system could become pretty suppressed

        But the microbes on the filters are still irrelevant since the sources of the microbes are the astronauts themselves. If the immune system is suppressed to the point the microbes can infect, the infection sources will be the skins of the astronauts.

        So there is a sense in which the first poster was right: the healthy ones will survive the unhealthy ones will die. Eliminate the microbes on the space station won't fix that. Only figuring out what needs to happen to boost the immune system back to normal will.

    2. John Sturdy
      Boffin

      Re: Opportunistic pathogens

      For opportunistic pathogens to cause a problem doesn't require suppression of the immune system; it can simply be that something that's harmless in one place is harmful in another. I've recently found this through personal experience, having had shoulder surgery in which one of the incisions happened to pass through a hair follicle, thus pushing propionibacterium acnes (the pathogen that causes acne, but otherwise lives as a harmless commensal in hair follicles) deeper into my body, causing an obvious majorly inflamed area and a risk of arthritis in two years if it got into the joint capsule. The treatment was six weeks of intravenous antibiotics. I normally shake off infections fairly quickly, so it's not as if my immune system was compromised.

      (There's an interesting experimental preventative treatment for this problem, by the way: seal the skin with cyanoacrylate, thus gluing the bacteria into place.)

      I guess they'll carry quite a range of antibiotics, and a quick google search indicates that crew medical officers are trained to insert IV lines. I don't know what they'd do about the equivalent of a drip chamber in zero-g, but I'm sure someone's found a way round that one.

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: Opportunistic pathogens

        crew medical officers are trained to insert IV lines. I don't know what they'd do about the equivalent of a drip chamber in zero-g, but I'm sure someone's found a way round that one.

        My first guess would be a peristaltic pump.

    3. DanceMan
      Boffin

      Re: Opportunistic pathogens

      I attended a fascinating lecture by the lovely boffin who lead the team that worked out how bacteria communicate. And it showed how bacteria that are always on us, like strep, when they determine that our defenses are low and the bacteria have sufficient numbers to overwhelm them, know then to attack.

      So in that way a suppressed immune system is indeed a problem.

  6. Stevey
    Mushroom

    War?

    '....scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians -- dead! -- slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared'

    1. Someonehasusedthathandle

      Re: War?

      DUN DUN DUN

      The planet earth, now over run with tiny opportunistic martian bacteria slowly succumb to the microbial invasion fleet that so valiantly succeeded where their once hosts failed. Man was beaten, slowly sinking underground into sealed bunkers. Hiding for it's very existence, hoping one day to emerge again into the sun lights red glow.

      "The chances of bacteria coming from Mars is a million to one he said, the chances of bacteria coming from Mars is a million to one but still they came"

      DUN DUN DUN

      1. phuzz Silver badge
        Megaphone

        Re: War?

        I'm going to have that tune stuck in my head all day now.

        That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned :)

    2. Tom 13

      Re: War?

      The more we learn about both microbes and traveling in space, the more incorrect Well's hypothesis looks.

  7. tony2heads
    Pirate

    Swab the decks

    ye earth lubbers

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ripley knew how to deal

    Have Jones in life-support, check!

    Wearing briefs, check!

    Air lock open!

  9. silver fox
    Trollface

    Space cheese!

    What an opportunity!

  10. Blitheringeejit
    Holmes

    Relativity

    So diphtheria and yoghurt are close relatives? I always suspected there was something dodgy about yoghurt...

    1. Chemist

      Re: Relativity

      "So diphtheria and yoghurt are close relatives? I always suspected there was something dodgy about yoghurt..."

      AFAIK the connection between Corynebacterium & yogurt is indirect. One Corynebacterium species is used in the manufacture of glutamate and then that glutamate is used in various foodstuffs including yogurt.

      "One of the most studied species is C. glutamicum, whose name refers to its capacity to produce glutamic acid in aerobic conditions.[27] It is used in the food industry as monosodium glutamate in the production of soy sauce and yogurt."

      "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corynebacterium#Industrial_uses"

  11. tiggity Silver badge

    No surprise

    There is no way you could remove all the various bacteria, virues & fungi on (and, even more impossible to remove, in!) each person visiting the ISS. So should be no surprise that various bugs lurking

    1. CCCP

      Re: No surprise

      Slight amend. There's no way you could remove all bacteria and keep the wannabe astro/cosmonaut alive.

      Off topic, isn't about bloody time we have single word for space travellers, instead of country variations? I vote for stellanaut because it's Latin for star and sounds like beer.

  12. x 7

    mutated space-irradiated bacteria. What an excellent breeding ground for the next generation of bacteriological warfare

  13. cray74

    Mir: The Funky Station

    The issue's not new. Mir was filled with mold and fungus by the time of its decommissioning. Visitors commented the biggest impression left on them by Mir was its olfactory funk (as opposed to the works of George Clinton).

    Wiki on Mir's microbrial onslaught

    Per this article, "Visitors have found numerous fungal patches with hues between green and black, feeding behind control panels, slowly digesting the ship's air conditioner, communications unit, and myriad other surfaces. Pull out an insulation panel on Mir, and you'll probably find fungus. ...

    Squinting to set his sights on the passing Earth below, this space explorer instead focused on a thick living mat that had made its way up the window's hard quartz surface, nearly obliterating any view. ...

    Linenger, who is a medical doctor and holds a doctorate in epidemiology, used a standard NASA test to determine fungal counts on surfaces. For the shuttle, he explained, the samples would be placed in a medium so their growth could be tracked over several days. But on Mir, he said, he couldn't do the count because the container was overgrown in half a day. "

    The ISS took lessons from Mir's fungal issues, but there's a limit. It's humid and warm in the ISS, and has been filled with humans shedding all sorts of lovely skin cells and other biological fodder for years.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: Mir: The Funky Station

      Sounds like the answer is a Roomba. I like the idea of a vacuum in space ;-)

  14. Velv
    Childcatcher

    Sounds like some scientist is laying the ground work for their forthcoming sci-if horror novel

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cultivation

    Sterilization doesn't seem to be working. By leaving a vacant, resource rich (for mirco flora & fauna) environment we give whatever gets there first a utopia to grow unchecked within.

    Maybe we should identify what we don't mind (physically, not mentally) sharing our livings spaces with and encouraging it/them to colonise that environment? We can then compensate for any effects.

  16. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    IT Angle

    Don't touch that .....

    Uhm ... so this stuff was found in the air filters? So the filters are working then?

    I suppose it depends on which side of the filter it was found.

  17. Rol

    I had this thought the other day

    It sounds novel, but I'm sure some biologists have tossed this around before:-

    Fill the craft with highly virulent, yet totally harmless bacteria.

    By having a benign bacteria dominate every corner of the craft, no other bacteria could get a foothold.

    1. x 7

      Re: I had this thought the other day

      "highly virulent, yet totally harmless bacteria."

      I suggest you check the meaning of "virulent" and try again

      Virulent:- (of a disease or poison) extremely severe or harmful in its effects.

      synonyms: poisonous, toxic, venomous, noxious, deadly, lethal, fatal, mortal, terminal, death-dealing, life-threatening, dangerous, harmful, injurious, pernicious, damaging, destructive, unsafe; contaminating, polluting; (literary)deathly, nocuous, mephitic; (archaic) baneful

      highly infectious, highly infective, highly contagious, infectious, infective, contagious, rapidly spreading, communicable, transmittable, transmissible, spreading, malignant, uncontrollable, pernicious, pestilential;

      severe, extreme, violent, dangerous, harmful, lethal, life-threatening;

      (informal) catching;

      (literary) pestiferous

      1. Rol

        Re: I had this thought the other day

        Yep. I'm the one standing in the corner with the dunce cap.

        I think I was clutching for virile and the English language which has lots of rhyme lacks reason by the bouquet load.

  18. Stevie

    Bah!

    Mutant space germs threaten International Space Station

    And how is this a surprise? Has no-one involved in the space effort seen The Quatermass Experiment?

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