[Nevermark]

Of all the strains of bacteria that we might give an opportunity to optimize for space survival, why would we pick something that is a threat to humans.

Space travel involves humans in an inescapable environment, without access to many medical therapies, and with potentially compromises immune systems! [0]

Seems like a strange choice.

Future news: "Drug resistant bacteria impossible to purge from Starship Mars Flyby 1. Sick astronauts turn strange color, sweat strange substance. Want to come home, but have 90% of their journey ahead. Fearing their novel infection, NASA tells them "Don't come back!", sends them erroneous course corrections. Bacteria researchers from 2024 experiment, jubilant at this dramatic evidence of their success, request more funding and astronauts."

[0] https://www.popsci.com/science/space-immune-system-t-cell-ge...

[T-A]

> Of all the strains of bacteria that we might give an opportunity to optimize for space survival, why would we pick something that is a threat to humans.

These bacteria were not intentionally brought to the ISS, they hitched a ride in/on the crews and colonized the station. From the paper [1]:

We obtained 211 assembled genomes, annotated as E. bugandensis, from the publicly available National Center for Biotechnology Information’s (NCBI) GenBank sequence database [20]. Among these genomes, 12 were isolated from three different locations aboard the ISS during the first Flight of the MT-1 mission: four from the Air Control (AC) samples, one from the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED), and seven from the Waste and Hygiene Compartment (WHC). Additionally, one metagenome-assembled genome (MAG) was recovered from the WHC samples.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10960378/

[Nevermark]

Thanks! I didn’t pick up on the bacteria simply being discovered!

Makes much better sense.

[benterix]

> Seems like a strange choice.

Well, we can either pretend it didn't happen and ignore it, or do the opposite and study it well so that one day we understand what makes them so efficient at dealing with X rays and existing drugs.

[nothercastle]

CDC is on it they just need to post some hand washing signs at the iss

[mort96]

I mean they're studying the bacteria, not "optimizing them for space travel".

And... the bacteria which are a threat to humans are exactly the ones we are interested in studying, because knowing more about them helps us figure out how to make them be less of a threat to humans.