As mankind heads for space and the final frontier we must be ultra careful to have procedures and protocols that our astronauts can follow in the event of the runaway bacteria inside the space capsule. This also goes for space stations and lunar colonies, as well as Martian colonies in the near future. Mrs. Tess Garrison wrote a book called Gravity which was a fictional science-fiction work discussing a runaway bacteria and virus in the international space station and the space shuttle. Over half the crew was killed before they could figure out what had happened and the culprit happened to be from an organism that was found in a volcanic vent deep in the ocean, which was taken into space for an experiment. Although this story was fiction, it was based on scientific knowledge of growth rates of certain bacteria's in zero gravity. Recently NASA has cut back funding all the astro-biological division and without their knowledge and funding it is quite possible that something like that could indeed happen. Abatement of bacteria in space capsules, space colonies and space stations is going to be critical issue in the future. Likewise that which we bring back from other worlds will also need to go through quaranteen and the capsule must be completely clean along with the astronauts inside prior to its mixing with Earth's atmosphere. Consider this in 2006. |
