Space vehicles may need to be more dirt to maintain the health of astronauts

The strategy of preserving spacecraft may be as clean and sterile as possible to ensure that astronauts are not wrong. The researchers who were studying the International Space Station (ISS) says that our immune devices may need to stimulate certain types of molecules and microbes to stay in good health.

“The general idea is to try to get a few microbes, but the question is whether this is the best thing to do to travel in the long run,” he says. Peter two dormancy At the University of California San Diego. “It is also related to places on the ground, such as the search [stations]Hospitals and submarines, where you can spend months or more. “

One of the causes of sterilization of space vehicles is to avoid planetary pollution, such as Mars, with microbes from Earth, but the main concern is that the infection that can be easily treated on our planet can become a major problem on a spacecraft.

The League and his team analyzed more than 700 surfaces on the International Space Station, and found that it was already clean in terms of the diversity of existing molecules and microbes.

“The space station is free of many molecules and microbes,” he says. “It is ultimately the maximum of human life.”

The team believes that this lack of exposure to the usual group of molecules and microbes can be one of the reasons behind the presence of major changes in the immune system in space. At the space station, astronauts often get a rash, unusual sensitivity, fungal or bacterial infections, as well as stimulating underlying viruses such as Epstein Bar, which was found in one of the samples.

“We have no full understanding of that,” Dorissin says. “But the way I see this is that your immune system should be similar periodically.”

The researchers say we need to find ways to make environments such as the Dirtier space station, so that they are more diverse in molecules and microbes, but without entering any causes of infection.

One way to do this is to apply bacteria like Bacillus Subtilis To surfaces instead of antiseptics, says Dorisin. for It is already widely used for its antifungal activity.

Cultivation of a group of plants can help as well. “We know from other studies that when people are exposed to plant molecules, they tend to reduce bonds with asthma and allergies,” says Dorisin. He says there is a complete absence of these plant molecules on the space plant.