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The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

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Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#61

Post by eesmith »

ethbro wrote: post #59
mongol wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the Andromeda Strain good? I have heard about it.

I was a huge Crichton fan when younger, and Andromeda Strain and most of his earlier stuff is head and shoulders above later work. The movie isn't bad either. I'd definitely skip reading anything newer than Lost World. Like Tom Clancy, at some point (and $) you lose the fire to write.

Danielle Steel has a net worth of over $300 million, and still has "the fire to write", so that point may be very high for some people.

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#62

Post by baxtr »

W-Stool wrote: post #56
tonyarkles wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ben Rich's book about the Skunkworks, one of the aircraft (U2? SR71?) was encountering high-altitude insect impacts on their windshields. Turns out they'd been lofted up there by nuclear tests.

Absolutely the best book, everyone here should read it.

Why?

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#63

Post by adtac »

orbital-decay wrote: post #14

There's also another similar long-term experiment being performed on the International Space Station [0]. It's not finished yet but apparently preliminary results [1] suggest that microorganisms can possibly be lifted into the upper atmosphere from the oceans somehow. They found different planktonic species from all over the world on the outer surface of the space station, which is hard to explain by spacecraft conta…

Interesting. I wonder if some extreme events could have kicked up enough microorganisms that some even went to the moon! That would be a false positive for finding life on the moon.

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#64

Post by Gibbon1 »

adtac wrote: post #63
orbital-decay wrote: post #14

There's also another similar long-term experiment being performed on the International Space Station [0]. It's not finished yet but apparently preliminary results [1] suggest that microorganisms can possibly be lifted into the upper atmosphere from the oceans somehow. They found different planktonic species from all over the world on the outer surface of the space station, which is hard to explain by spacecraft conta…

Interesting. I wonder if some extreme events could have kicked up enough microorganisms that some even went to the moon! That would be a false positive for finding life on the moon.

I'd make a $5 bet that if they find and sequence life on Mars it'll be not just speciously like archaea but actually archaea.

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#65

Post by mirimir »

nickserv wrote: post #10

And I thought I had it bad in my kitchen. In any case I'm really wondering how it grows outside, which the article didn't really explain. It's one thing for the spores to survive in vacuum, another altogether for it to actually grow in vacuum. Or did I misunderstand something?

Maybe just sloppy title writing.

Because TFA says nothing about it growing outside.

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#66

Post by rightbyte »

eevilspock wrote: post #47
wwwtyro wrote: post #4

"The research touches on this, and it warns astronauts to follow recommended planetary protection protocols designed to prevent visiting spacecraft from contaminating other planets and moons in our solar system with microorganisms from Earth. The study suggests that, because of the risk of contamination, these fungal spores may need to be considered a more serious threat." This makes me wonder if we've accidentally a…

If these spores are evolving new properties under the conditions of space, is there danger of contaminating Earth with "super mould"?

The space mould would probably be at a disadvantage on earth right? Any systematic evolution would go towards low gravity and radiation resiliance.

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#67

Post by DanBC »

csours wrote: post #29
ChuckMcM wrote: post #25

Well that is an interesting result. Also bodes well for the pan spermia crowd, they are the ones that think an asteroid impact can bring life to a planet and kick off the whole life cycle. Certainly the center of an icy mass probably stays well within the survival parameters of these forms of mold. Also interesting to see if we can deduce the DNA changes that lead to this resistance. It would be an advantage for astr…

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/87978/how-and-wh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board

That stack exchange answer is very very good. I want to highlight it because it'd be a shame if people missed it.

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#68

Post by vasco »

jodrellblank wrote: post #44
CydeWeys wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, is this a threat or is it the unexpected boon of getting a jump-start on terraforming? If you could press a button and "contaminate" Mars with life that would start spreading and generating an oxygen atmosphere, wouldn't you?

Yes I would; if you think it a useful idea for humans to become a multiplanetary species, then it seems to me just as important that life itself be multiplanetary. And that we ought to be spamming as much life as we can, the hardiest Earth organisms, as far as we can onto any body where they stand a chance of taking hold - Venus, Europa, Martian poles, comets, lobbing things at distant stars with planets intending th…

Why is it so important for the universe for life to exist and what makes it our job to guarantee it does?

Re: The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside

#69

Post by benj111 »

thirstywhimbrel wrote: post #41
not2b wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would mean you have a much harder time finding out if Mars once had life, if instead you're detecting mold that hitched a ride with your spacecraft.

I think you're right, this is the best argument against. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy[0] deals with this a great deal, the early scientists pretty quickly devolve into two camps, terraformers and preservationists. There's a lot of other things going on as well, but this is one subplot. At one point in the book, a terraformer made the argument if we discovered life on Mars we'd never know how or when it got the…

"KSR doesn't explicitly take a side"

I don't want to give any spoilers, but the weirdest part of Blue Mars (?) seems to take a side on the existence of life on Mars. Or am I misremembering.

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