Project Manager Kalpana Ganeshan and Swati Ravi, credit: Columbia University Space Initiative
Two days before Christmas Day (December 22) as part of the 24th mission, Musk’s unmanned spacecraft Cargo Dragon delivered new cargo to the ISS International Space Station. It includes over a ton of material and equipment for a number of different experiments. Thus, among other things, experimental mice were found in orbit at an altitude of about 420 km above the Earth’s surface, to help detect the effects of microgravity on the eye and visual functions, as well as safely enclosed cases with bacteria of two common species Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. It is worth noting that these pathogens were sent into space by prestigious students Columbia University based in the US state of New York under the initiative SPOCS (Student Payload Opportunity with Citizen Science ). It is one of five university projects that NASA has selected and sponsored from $ 20,000 from many proposals. A team of twenty undergraduates and PhD students, led by two young scientists of probably Indian descent – Kalpany (called Kal) Ganeshan and Swati Ravi – planned and completely set up the experiment, which is thanks to the so-called single-chip computers microcontroller ) is not fully autonomous and does not burden the ISS crew. Although the hermetically sealed system is not technologically complicated, it is professionally interesting and meaningful. Both pathogens it contains are relatively common around us and on us, they often occur together. And both can create antibiotic-resistant lines. Healthy people do not cause health problems, in the worst case they show cold sores or purulent abscesses. However, in people who are weakened by the disease, they can cause inflammation of the mucous membranes of, for example, the ureters (especially in the case of long-term catheters) or the upper respiratory tract. Bacterial infiltration can lead to difficult-to-treat inflammations up to sepsis (blood poisoning). How does weightlessness affect the multiplication of these common pathogens? How does a bacterial biofilm form on a substrate under cosmic conditions? Are there more or more specific mutations in microbes? Could born-generation generations be more dangerous and how do they respond to antibiotics? These are the questions that students will be looking for answers when, after thirty days on the ISS, their samples with inoculated nutrient substrates return to the university laboratories. In order not to be affected by the changing conditions when returning to the surface of our planet, they will survive the journey back in a frozen state.
Video 1: Research project on the effect of microgravity on bacteria and their resistance to antibiotics
SpaceX Cargo Dragon parked under ISS Credit: NASA
This research has several important aspects. Probably the most important is the unique, undoubtedly very motivating opportunity for students to participate fully in an interesting space experiment, from the initial project to the results. These are certainly not without any practical significance. It can be assumed that if we live up to the generic designation sapiens and do not release geopolitical tension in mutual fatal shelling, it will fly more and more people to near and perhaps more distant outer space, and many will spend months, if not years, in it.
More recently, the Biden-Harris administration has approved extension of ISS operations until 2030 . This decision is related to the US by plan , which assumes that at that time at least one more commercially oriented space station of one of the private companies (Axiom, Blue Origin, Nanoracks & Lockheed Martin …) will be placed in orbit. Operating the ISS is too expensive for NASA alone, but it does not intend to stay without the US space station. China is catching up fast. Since the end of April 2021, the Earth’s basic and gradually completed and supplemented space station module has been orbiting Tchien-kung designed for a three-member crew. India also has significant plans to become the fourth country with its own manned space missions program. A test phase should take place this year, and the first Indian astronauts in an Indian rocket are said to be heading into space next year. The Indian space research organization ISRO makes no secret of its goal of having its own space station in orbit over time. It is therefore not entirely without context – but also geopolitical – that Indian names often appear on many, not only NASA student projects.
Video 2: Every astronaut contaminates the spacecraft environment, the micro-organisms they carry and which may affect the flight in the longer term.
In brief an overview of the other four student projects currently underway at ISS:
1 / The effect of the microgravity environment on the ability Microgravity Environment Impact on Plastic Biodegradation by Galleria mellonella , Arkansas State University
Development Pseudomonas aeruginosa colony biofilms are affected by redox-active compounds called phenazines. The zero phenazine mutant produces very wrinkled colonies with conspicuous rays, while wild-type colonies are more compact and smoother. Credit: Hassan Sakhtah, Columbia University
Waxwing is moth from the family Pyralidae, which also includes the infamous food moth. But the wax moth is a “nightmare” for beekeepers, because as the name suggests, it attacks the honeycombs through which the caterpillar eats and in which it also pupae. Thanks to the chemicals contained in the digestive tract, caterpillars are able to digest and polyethylene, which is an interesting property in terms of biodegradation of this plastic. Just for fun: the male “love song” of the pier does not sound on a minor scale, but on ultrasound pulses.
2 / Biopolymer Research for In-Situ Capabilities (BRIC), Stanford University
Research as gravity affects the formation of bricks formed from soil reinforced biopolymers (biopolymer-bound soil composite – BSC). The project also includes the design of a prototype of an automatic machine producing BSC bricks, for example from Martian regolith in the Martian environment. The aim of the project is therefore to monitor how low gravity can affect the whole process of making such bricks.
3 / Bacteria Resistant Polymers in Microgravity – University of Idaho
The aim of the selected project is to find out how microgravity affects the efficiency of bacteria-resistant polymers.
4 / New methods view antibiotics in space (Novel Methods of Antibiotic Discovery in Space – NoMADS) University of New Hampshire at Manchester
Investigating how microgravity affects the number of bacterial isolates that produce antibiotic metabolites. Research should also contribute to understanding the microbiome changes of people living in space and thus to safer and more targeted treatment of possible bacterial infections in astronauts.
Video 3: The ISS crew participates in several experiments designed by scientific institutions:
Source: Columbia University , NASA 1 , 2 , 3
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