[geuis]

Nothing to comment about in terms of radiation but I'm curious about the microbiome.

Given the ISS is a closed environment, I think gut bacteria samples from other astronauts on board at the same time would be valuable to compare. Also cultures from skin and mouth.

There has been work showing we have unique personal microbiomes that follow us around. When we live with other people for long enough, there's a lot of merging between them.

[toolbox]

I think that's a great insight. At the very least, it gives us more points of comparison. I'll try to pass it along to those who might be able to do something with it! (And now I'm going to go down the rabbit hole to find out if there's been anything like that done before)

Okay the rabbit hole wasn't that deep. At the very least it appears that this [1] is ongoing.

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experime...

[_archon_]

This is neat. Also, there's nothing saying that a Mars trip couldn't bring a set of gut flora pills, each diverse and different, to be taken periodically. While sampling and isolation are interesting in their effects, actually harvesting nutrition as well as possible will be mission-critical. This seems like an easy, inexpensive safeguard.