Author Topic: Sea plankton found on ISS exterior - Space Quarantine Protocols  (Read 16204 times)

Offline Stormbringer

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escape velocity from 100 miles up is different from escape velocity from the surface isn't it?

True, it is different... it is lower, but only by 2-3% or so.

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something reentering, or a meteor, or even a cosmic ray

Cosmic ray pushing a bacteria upwards? Surely you jest.
not if it directly hits it. but if it churns the air near it's path or creates a channel for one of those high altitude lightning bolts, "sprites" etc...
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Offline gospacex

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something reentering, or a meteor, or even a cosmic ray

Cosmic ray pushing a bacteria upwards? Surely you jest.

not if it directly hits it. but if it churns the air near it's path or creates a channel for one of those high altitude lightning bolts, "sprites" etc...

Cosmic ray "churning the air" is ridiculous. You are hit by cosmic rays dozens of times per second. Do you feel any "churning"?

You are talking nonsense and clearly know very little about cosmic rays and orbital mechanics.
« Last Edit: 08/21/2014 10:00 am by gospacex »

Offline Stormbringer

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something reentering, or a meteor, or even a cosmic ray

Cosmic ray pushing a bacteria upwards? Surely you jest.

not if it directly hits it. but if it churns the air near it's path or creates a channel for one of those high altitude lightning bolts, "sprites" etc...

Cosmic ray "churning the air" is ridiculous. You are hit by cosmic rays dozens of times per second. Do you feel any "churning"?

You are talking nonsense and clearly know very little about cosmic rays and orbital mechanics.
actually i *AM* aware of the cosmic ray incidence at ground level. i am also aware of my deficiencies in orbital mechanics. furthermore "churning" is more for the other things i mentioned. but cosmic rays do spawn energetic events occasionally. for example antimatter matter reactions up there. again tiny but then so is a spore. another thing is cosmic rays are indicated as a source of not only regular lightning but those odd upper atmosphere events including the variety that shoots upwards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atmospheric_lightning

and i believe i have read recent articles on some of these even going up out of the atmosphere.

beyond that the atmosphere has plenty of things that "churn" it up.
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Offline hop

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actually i *AM* aware of the cosmic ray incidence at ground level. i am also aware of my deficiencies in orbital mechanics. furthermore "churning" is more for the other things i mentioned. but cosmic rays do spawn energetic events occasionally. for example antimatter matter reactions up there. again tiny but then so is a spore. another thing is cosmic rays are indicated as a source of not only regular lightning but those odd upper atmosphere events including the variety that shoots upwards
If you want to make the case this is a viable mechanism, do some math and come up with a credible model. This hand wavy "but X could do it" without even trying to make an order of magnitude estimate is pointless.

Note that if you have have a microbe drifting in the atmosphere and suddenly accelerate the ISS orbital velocity, you will have imparted enough energy to vaporize it. If you merely boost it to ISS altitude, it will vaporize on impact. So not only do you have to accelerate your "plankton" to almost exactly ISS orbit, you have to do it gently. Unless your mechanism can specifically select "plankton" you should also see a large quantity of ordinary dust, aerosols etc. lofted by the same mechanism.

In any case, there would be a much greater quantity of stuff that is boosted onto trajectories that don't match ISS orbit. All that stuff would effectively be MMOD. We have been doing MMOD exposure experiments for decades. If there was a substantial amount of earth-originated stuff, it would have shown up.

Offline inventodoc

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The Russians claim to have found tiny organisms on an exterior window of the ISS. Sea plankton.

http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/745635

They think that this arrived through the upper atmosphere rather than contamination.  Some press on this was critical or skeptical. This story has been out for hours. I was surprised it wasn't on the forum already.

Offline dj_fan

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Has anyone considered the significance of ISS venting from the interior of its modules?  Many vents for both permanent modules; resupply vehicles have at least pressure relief. 

Probably my guess is not H2 venting due to Russian electrolysis, (although that could expel H2O along with H2) but the CO2 removal.  CO2 removal is probably not perfect; water vapor and air both could be expelled along with CO2. 

It would still be interesting to know how the microbes got to where they were sampled, however.  ;D

Online Herb Schaltegger

Has anyone considered the significance of ISS venting from the interior of its modules?  Many vents for both permanent modules; resupply vehicles have at least pressure relief. 

Probably my guess is not H2 venting due to Russian electrolysis, (although that could expel H2O along with H2) but the CO2 removal.  CO2 removal is probably not perfect; water vapor and air both could be expelled along with CO2. 

It would still be interesting to know how the microbes got to where they were sampled, however.  ;D

I designed the Space Station Freedom/ISS CO2 vent. There are desiccant beds in the CDRA that are supposed to thoroughly dry the working fluid (air) before CO2 removal; if the desiccant beds have break-through and allow in more moisture than specified, it's possible trace amounts of water vapor may be vented along with the CO2, but they'd instantly sublimate.

A far more likely source of microscopic exterior contamination are water and/or urine vents. I don't recall the how urine was handled early in the iSS deployment, but I know for a fact early SSF ECLSS plans were to vent excess water vapor; this was prior to the installation of water purification hardware during the assembly sequence. There's plenty of ways stray organic molecules (possibly including microbial life) could get mixed up in condensate collected from the Temperature and Humidity Control systems or in the urine collection systems.

That being said, I'll believe it when it's confirmed by internal NASA reports somewhere in L2. ;)
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Offline Star One

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Round up of the various theories of how they could have got there.

http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/russian-cosmonauts-report-sea-plankton-outside-iss

Offline mr. mark

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May I suggest another more outlandish theory since this subject is pretty outlandish. Maybe they are not coming from Earth but are out there...... :o

Offline hop

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A far more likely source of microscopic exterior contamination are water and/or urine vents.
How about airlock and hatch vestibule depress?

Offline Star One

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May I suggest another more outlandish theory since this subject is pretty outlandish. Maybe they are not coming from Earth but are out there...... :o

We should be more worried if it attracts any space whales.

Offline SWGlassPit

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Don't worry, they all live on the moon.




I'll just show myself out....

Offline Avron

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This is silly.. and what are these planton consuming other than x-rays .. HD TV and other dosed of radiation?

Offline A_M_Swallow

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This is silly.. and what are these planton consuming other than x-rays .. HD TV and other dosed of radiation?

Sun light, heat from inside the ISS, cold from space and anything else on the outside of the ISS.

Online Herb Schaltegger

A far more likely source of microscopic exterior contamination are water and/or urine vents.
How about airlock and hatch vestibule depress?

Those are other sources, sure. The difference is depressing those spaces presumes measurable amounts of microbial contamination flowing freely in the air. I would personally expect more microbial colonization in damp and humid locations, like in the waste and hygiene areas and water/urine vents, et cetera.

But this whole discussion presumes the story isn't just tabloid-quality sensationalism or made-up nonsense in the first place. :)
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Offline JimO

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///
Note that if you have have a microbe drifting in the atmosphere and suddenly accelerate the ISS orbital velocity, you will have imparted enough energy to vaporize it. If you merely boost it to ISS altitude, it will vaporize on impact. So not only do you have to accelerate your "plankton" to almost exactly ISS orbit, you have to do it gently. Unless your mechanism can specifically select "plankton" you should also see a large quantity of ordinary dust, aerosols etc. lofted by the same mechanism.

In any case, there would be a much greater quantity of stuff that is boosted onto trajectories that don't match ISS orbit. All that stuff would effectively be MMOD. We have been doing MMOD exposure experiments for decades. If there was a substantial amount of earth-originated stuff, it would have shown up.

EXACTLY.

Be careful, though, because this was the argument used AGAINST the martian origin of meteorites, since the energy needed to expel them from Mars would vaporize them. The overlooked mechanism was entrapped vaporization of oblique impacts which 'squirted' hypervelocity jets which 'gradually' entrained debris to escape. The rocks had gotten here, it took awhile for theory to catch up [like the old myth of bee's flying against all aerodynamic theory].

All we have is Solovyov's off-hand comment, right? No Russian scientist? No date of when the samples were taken, returned to Earth, examined? No checking of seawater contamination [or even coastal fog exposure] at Kourou -- the ATS docks at the Russian end, fresh from oceanic climes. Three other seacoast launch sites host supply flights to the US segment.

There seems to be a lot less to this story than first appeared. What am I missing?

Offline eeergo

Reviving this topic: https://www.roscosmos.ru/23588/

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[...]in experiments in different years were found fragments: DNA Mycobacteria as a marker of heterotrophic marine bacterial plankton dwelling in the Barents Sea; DNA extremophilic bacteria Delftria; DNA of bacteria that are similar in their primary structure to the bacteria identified in Madagascar soil samples; Plant DNA genome; Archaea DNA (present in nearly all samples) and DNA of fungi and Erythrobasidium Cystobasidium.
[...]
According to scientists, this proves the hypothesis about the appearance tropospheric source of living organisms, and suggests the possibility of transfer of the aerosol substance from the troposphere to the height of the ionosphere. Moreover, the results support the hypothesis of the existence of the mechanism "ionospheric elevator" exercising transfer tropospheric aerosol from the surface into the upper ionosphere. This means that the aerosol effect on climate is not limited to the known effects in the troposphere and stratosphere.
-DaviD-

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