Do astronauts’ microbes and the microbes in their space habitat influence each other?

Details

This chapter brings together existing research rather than reporting a new experiment. Its central finding comes from studies of International Space Station crews: the microbes associated with astronauts and their surroundings form an interacting system, with diet also involved. The abstract does not provide participant numbers or detailed methods for those studies.

The chapter discusses why this relationship may matter in enclosed habitats during longer space journeys. Changes in diet and environment can upset the balance of microbes in the gut. It links altered gravity, cosmic radiation, disrupted daily body rhythms and enclosed living conditions with reduced immune function, disturbances in how the body uses energy and materials, and problems with thinking and other brain functions. It more tentatively raises disease progression and changes in patterns of gene activity as possibilities with longer exposure. The abstract does not isolate how much microbial changes contribute to these outcomes.

The authors propose that understanding and preserving the relationship between humans, microbes and artificial habitats will be important for interplanetary settlement. That is a proposal about future missions, not a demonstrated result from a Mars mission.