William Atkins
Saturday, 21 March 2009 21:15
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
Two of the STS-119 astronauts onboard the International Space Station tested themselves for possible biological contamination before taking a spacewalk in what NASA calls the "first-ever test of planetary protection technology."
The March 20, 2009 NASA media release “
ISS Spacewalkers Test Planetary Protection Concept” announced the first test of a NASA system that one day could protect the planet Mars, and any Martians living there, of any contamination, such as microbes, brought from Earth, specifically from those biologically dirty Earthlings (at least when on celestial bodies other than Earth).
According to British molecular biologist
Jake G. Maule (Carnegie Institution of Washington), who is the principal investigator for the Lab-On-A-Chip Application Development Portable Test System (
LOCAD-PTS), on March 19, 2009,
“We conducted the tests using LOCAD-PTS, a miniature biological lab for space travelers.”
Before the mission lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center earlier in March 2009, the S6 truss (which the STS-119 crew brought up to the Space Station inside the payload bay of the space shuttle
Discovery) was tested for contamination.
The scientists, which included Maule, didn’t find any bacteria on the structure but the researchers did find the glucan molecule, which is a part of fungi (specifically a polysaccharide of D-glucose monomers linked by glycosidic bonds).
Knowing that glucan was on the S6 truss, the spacewalkers going out to work on the S6 truss were tested before and after their work to see if any of the glucan molecules were picked up on their spacesuits from the truss.
The two astronauts performing the test were spacewalkers Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold, both members of the STS-119 mission team. Before they left the ISS airlock both men had their gloves swabbed by astronaut Sandy Magnus with a high-tech “Q-tip,” as it is called.
A
video of the Q-tip test is provided by NASA.
Page two provides more comments from Jake Maule on the Q-tip experiment (LOCAD-PTS).
