Sneaky New Bacteria on the ISS Could Build a Future on Mars – WIRED

In mid-March, NASA researchers announced that theyd found an unknown life-form hiding aboard the International Space Station. And they were cool with that.

In fact, for an organization known for a sophisticated public communications strategyMars rovers dont write their own tweets, is what Im sayingeveryone was pretty quiet about this discovery.

Almost too quiet.

Its true that the new life wasnt, say, a xenomorphic alien with acid for blood. It was a novel species of bacteria, unknown on Earth but whose genes identified it as coming from a familiar terrestrial genus called Methylobacterium. Typically its members like to hang out amid the roots of plants, not on the walls of space stations. Still, youd think a probably-not-but-maybe-evolved-in-space microbe would merit a little more freaking out. Yet here we are. Nobody was exactly surprisedand the reasons why could define the future of human space exploration.

As part of an ongoing research project into the microbial life of the ISS, astronauts onboard in 2015 and 2016 swabbed down various parts of the station and sent home the wipes they used. Over the next couple of years down here on Earth, a team of researchers headquartered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratorys Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group isolated the microbes and sequenced their genes. One species, found on a HEPA filter in the stations life-support system, was a garden-variety (literally!) Methylobacterium rhodesianum. But three samplesfrom a surface near the materials research rack, a wall near the cupola of windows, and the astronauts' dining tablewere something new. The researchers running the project named it M. ajmalii.

It wasnt even the first time these researchers found a new bacterium in space. Theyd already found a whole other unknown bacterium in that set of ISS samplesthey published a paper on that in 2017. Theres a chance that these bugs are in some sense aliens, that they evolved on the station. But its a thin one. Odds are they hitched a ride on cargo, or on astronauts, and the microbe hunters only noticed them because they went looking. There are chances of evolution in space, no doubt, but the space station is so young. Its only 20 years old. Bacteria might not have evolved in that span of time, says Kasthuri Venkateswaran, the JPL microbiologist running the project.

Whats more interesting, maybe, is figuring out which bacteria are zeroes on Earth but heroes in the rarified, closed-loop environment of a spaceship. Thats why studying the International Space Stations microbiomethe bacteria, fungi, and viruses that thrive on boardmight be critical to the safety of missions to Mars, or permanent bases on 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 vessel or shelter. Were able to say that novel species carried by the crew might have some characteristics to withstand the conditions there, Venkateswaran says. The rest might have died. These are the things that survive.

Space is really quite unpleasant. Outside a vessel or vacuum suit, itd be a race to see if you died first from suffocation or freeze-drying. (The high levels of hard radiation are more of a long-term deal breaker.)

So the insides of those vessels and suits have to be closed systems. The only things that come and go are cargo and astronauts. But wherever people go, they bring their ride-along microbes with themin their guts, on their skin, in their noses and mouths. Thats true in your house, and its true on the ISS. But the ISS is not like your house, and not just because it recycles air and water and you cant open the windows. The air on the ISS is drier, with higher levels of carbon dioxide. Radiation levels are higher. Theres no gravity to speak of. (Were used to certain kinds of microbes staying on the floor, but they dont stay on the floor if there is no floor, says John Rummel, a former NASA Planetary Protection Officer, responsible for keeping aliens off of Earth and Earth life off of other places.) It smells not-so-fresh inside the ISS, and because its full of nooks and crannies that water droplets can float into and then adhere to, thanks to surface tension, it has lots of places where microbes can hang out.

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Sneaky New Bacteria on the ISS Could Build a Future on Mars - WIRED