The Microbes Making Themselves at Home on the Space Station
The bacteria living with astronauts more closely resemble the kind living in homes on Earth, rather than on humans themselves.
While dozens of people have lived there over the years—including six right now—the International Space Station is unlike any other home. Its residents sleep zipped into bags tethered to the wall so they don’t float away. They pee into a plastic hose that suctions urine into a processor and then turns it into drinking water. Their showers require squeezing globs of water out of pouches.
But just like in homes found on Earth, the residents
