4 discoveries about microbes on the International Space Station:
The International Space Station recently had its microbiome sequenced and compared to microbiomes of built environments on Earth.As humans begin our return to the Moon and aim for Mars, it is important to understand the microbes we are taking and sealing in with us for long periods of time. Space travel must also reduce microbial contamination of other planets. The first step is understanding the microbiome of closed systems, like that of the International Space Station .
At first glance, one might guess that the ISS microbiome is similar to spacecraft assembly cleanrooms. However, the ISS has more microbes than cleanrooms, most likely due to the humans and cargo arriving that were exposed to other environments. Cleanrooms have extraordinarily high standards to maintain a sterile environment that are not mirrored once the components are on the ISS. Moreover, from a microbe's perspective, the ISS is not nutrient deplete like a cleanroom.
The researchers compared the ISS microbiomes to several different microbiomes on Earth. A simple explanation is that cargo is cleaned thoroughly before being sent to the ISS, whereas humans will constantly shed microbes from their skin. This is unpreventable. It's also the reason we have dust in closed spaces that we occupy, like work and home.
Opportunistic pathogens prefer to infect people with weaker immune systems, so the health of individual astronauts is important. We do not know how these pathogens are affected by microgravity and space, which has higher levels of radiation. Opportunistic pathogens on Earth may not be opportunistic pathogens in space. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to correlate viable opportunistic pathogens with crew member health since the ISS has high turnover of its relatively few occupants.
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