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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

#71

Post by benj111 »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #6
goddtriffin wrote: post #3

"But the spores may not be all bad though. Cortesao's research is looking for ways the space-growing fungi may help us long-term, investigating their capacity to grow in less than ideal conditions. The study's aim is to harness the hardy microbes as biological factories to create materials astronauts may use on longer missions, such as antibiotics and vitamins." I wouldn't mind tasting some space-alcohol.

You're in luck! There's a company that makes beer with yeast that's been in space [0]. [0] https://vostokspacebeer.com/

How does that work?

The yeast will breed and die while fermenting, so the yeast you finish with will be different to that which you started with.

So its more like 'yeast whose forebears had gone to space'.

And do they save and reuse the batch of 'space yeast' or send a fresh batch to space for each brew?

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

#72

Post by Haga »

Retric wrote: post #22
delecti wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more excited by the prospect that we've started terraforming Venus. It has an atmosphere, and with a lot of CO2. Wouldn't take many surviving plant microbes on one of the probes we've sent to start things off. Get the CO2 under control and in a few million years it might be downright balmy.

Edit: ops grand parent mentioned Mars and it’s atmosphere is extremely thin. For comparison at 35,000 feet on earth it’s 3.4 psi. On mars at ground level it’s 0.088 psi. Add in being 53% further from the sun and would take quite a bit to make Mars habitable. Venus has the opposite problem sitting much closer to the sun and with much higher atmospheric pressure.

Couldn't one make a small solar sail that orbits closer to the sun in sync with venus and shadowcones the planet?

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

#74

Post by JetSpiegel »

mongol wrote: post #52
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…

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

The film is a very good sleeping aid, its the only one I tried to watch and failed three times, succumbing to sleep.

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

#75

Post by Causality1 »

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.

I reread Jurassic Park on a yearly basis. I like to think that if Crichton lived longer he'd have grown out of being a climate denier.

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

#76

Post by Faark »

vasco wrote: post #68
jodrellblank wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well, the thing that sets living stuff apart from non-living seems to be the ability to sustain life (usually in the form of offspring). From this we can infer the purpose of life to be keeping life alive.

Spreading live across the universe being a good way to keep some of it going seems plausible. I'd obviously prefer intelligent beings like humans doing so, since so far evolution indicates this development path to have the best chances long term. But if not possible or too costly, spreading the next closest thing to us that is possible makes sense. At least as a form of backup. And sending microbes seem quite easy...

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

#77

Post by sandworm101 »

Causality1 wrote: post #75
ethbro wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I reread Jurassic Park on a yearly basis. I like to think that if Crichton lived longer he'd have grown out of being a climate denier.

Looking the age of people at the conventions, I think climate denial is the sort of things you grow in to, not out of.

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

#78

Post by igravious »

mirimir wrote: post #65
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.

“New research being presented at the Astrobiology Science Conference shows the International Space Station has an irritating mould problem — not only on the inside, but the outside, too.”

"We now know that [fungal spores] resist radiation much more than we thought they would, to the point where we need to take them into consideration when we are cleaning spacecraft, inside and outside," Cortesao said in a statement.

emphasis mine

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

#79

Post by bjelkeman-again »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #54
CydeWeys wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine though. Having a second home for humanity is more important than maximally preserving the ability to detect past life (note that we wouldn't be eliminating that ability, just hindering it somewhat). Also, we think we'd be able to tell pretty easily whether any life detected is from Earth (i.e. we brought it along with us). Life that isn't descended from the same tree of life as us is likely to be radicall…

Mars will never be able to be a "second home" for humanity: it lacks the ability to maintain an atmosphere that can support humans due to its weak magnetic field. The bottom of the ocean would be far more habitable if we faced any type of extinction event.

It may be possible to create a magnetic field to protect the atmosphere. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars#Protect...

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

#80

Post by zenpaul »

Being a homeowner, hearing an "irritating mould problem" didn't make me think "resilient fungi could lead to new kinds of materials for use in space". It made me think that there are some serious health risks for those astronauts if that mould gets out of control.

Funny nobody mentions that.

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