Mold grows on the International Space Station on a panel where exercise clothes were hung to dry.
Credit: NASA
What doesn’t kill it makes it stronger.
Sounds like the plot line of about a dozen sci-fi movies. While attempting to eradicate common mold using ionizing radiation, something really bad happens. Next thing you know you've got zombies in space, or some such.
Nothing a little bleach , salt and copper sulfate can’t cure.
Its gotta smell like roses, everyone drinking and sweating out urine 24/7. Who brought the sour kraut?
For female astronauts the result will be an incurable yeast infection.
I once took a mini course in radiation. One of the topics at the time was how safe was ultrasonic radiation, as measured in mW/cm2 on humans.
Perhaps they should try that physical energy amp’d up for spores?
Yeah, and they’re going to bring that nasty stuff back to Earth with them. Imagine cleaning a shower stall with that crap buried in the grout lines.
“Honey...we’re gonna need a bigger flamethrower.”
Nuke it **IN** orbit.
It’s the only way to be SURE. . .
Humans don’t/can’t live in a completely sterile environment. Instead of fighting this, future space stations need to be biospheres where it is accepted that there will be as much living things as an Earth building.
Yeah, so landing on another planet with different life forms is impossible. You have to know everything down there that can harm you. And you need an immune system that can handle it. And you need to have everything you carry categorized and made non threatening. So dont worry about fighting aliens here. The outer space ones anyway.
Maybe we should start over with a new space station? I can’t see breeding super strains of mold being a good idea, nor living for any length of time in a moldy dwelling.
This begs the question of whether there is mold and fungus in outer space, or whether fungus came to the earth from there in the first place.
We have this problem on the boat. We wipe things down with cleaning vinegar occasionally and keep it under control.
The more we use it, the less of a problem it seems to be.
Tilex, folks...
Works wonders.
Dr. Bernard Quatermass is unavailable for comment on reports of unexplained space molds.
It has happened before. See this preview of a documentary of “The Green Slime”....
https://youtu.be/g79_ljVC5Wk?t=86
True story kept from us. Really.