The International Space Station (|SS) has low microbial diversity, which could lead to astronaut health issues, according to a study published in Cell.

Researchers found that the microbial communities resemble those found in sanitized environments like hospitals rather than natural settings.

Co-senior study author Pieter Dorrestein explains that increasing microbial exposure could improve astronaut health during long-term space travel.

The study suggests incorporating natural elements, like soil, into the ISS to enhance microbial diversity and astronaut well-being.

The study in question:

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00108-4

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean we send probes too.

[–] surph_ninja 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Totally. And we should ramp up the funding of those teams to send more, even to the detriment of human space flight programs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sending probes makes you good at sending probes, it'll never make you good at sending humans. Further, it is because things are untested that we send humans. Because we can think and adapt. We're able to do a lot more than even controlled rovers can do. There is no real training data for a spacefaring AI and genAI does not exist. Humans however, can figure out new situations.

Yes, there are difficulties in human space travel but they aren't difficulties that an automaton is going to be able to indicate to us. What probe would let us know about human health in space? What probe can share any real perspective about what it's like to see a sunrise not on earth.

Making space purely robotic is depressing.

[–] surph_ninja 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah. It’s not a very romantic truth. But we’re dealing with finite budgets, and we need to set aside some romanticism for practicality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not getting the practicality of sending probes if the eventual goal is to send humans. I don't get removing the romanticism if you want people to work towards it. I don't get the point about giving space to commercial consumerism without giving a chance to everything else.

[–] surph_ninja 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Because we’re now at a technological level where we can begin the push for space-based manufacturing, which is the key to unlocking the solar system for our species. Our biggest limitation right now is we have to launch every single bolt up out of the gravity well.

If we can dismantle the military industrial complex, and reappropriate the budget for the space program, there’s no need to choose. But if we’re going to continue to work with these limited budgets, I think it’s more beneficial to put human space flight on hold for this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Space manufacturing is not a feasible thing anytime soon. It would require input, which means either sending raw materials which is wasteful or being able to like grab asteroids out of orbit which is not a stage we're at.

[–] surph_ninja 1 points 1 day ago

We absolutely need to be grabbing asteroids. We’re not there yet because we’re not devoting enough resources to it.