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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2022

Unlocking the Spacecraft and Human Habitat Microbiome to Enable the Next Generation of Space Exploration

Planetary protection is the discipline that prevents harmful contamination of the solar system during exploration activities. The current international guidelines and NASA policy addressing biological contamination on spacecraft surfaces contains prescriptive guidelines of spore requirements (e.g., 300 spores/m2, 5×105 spores per spacecraft) applicable to spacecraft bound for Mars. To verify these requirements spacecraft engineers sample spacecraft surfaces throughout the assembly, test and launch operations phase of the mission using damp water cotton swabs and polyester wipes. After sampling, the potential biological contamination is enumerated using a series of traditional microbiology techniques to include sonication, heat shocking at 80°C for 15min to select for spores, and growth on tryptic soy agar at 32°C for 72 hours. To enable crewed missions to Mars and robotic exploration of the Ocean Worlds a risk informed decision making / performance-based approach to assess biological contamination offers a promising solution in the trade space. Recognizing the need for a performance-based approach, NASA’s new Planetary Protection policies now incorporate the agility for missions to be able to leverage a performance or prescriptive approach. One of top contenders in the option space is a coupled quantitative, descriptive and functional based approach to be able to assess the quantity, types and capabilities of the biological contamination present on spacecraft surfaces. A tailored, mission by mission assurance case could then be formulated by building an argument around the target body, projected capabilities surrounding the types of organisms their potential for survival and proliferation, and ability to be transported on the target body to contaminate an area of biological interest. A performance-based requirement would then be used to demonstrate the mission’s compliance in protecting the planetary environment safety objectives. This symposium talk will showcase the background and need case for NASA to develop such a capability as well as provide an update on the efforts underway in developing a transparent and responsible performance-based approach to biological contamination assessments on spacecraft surfaces.

Habitat Microbiome↗
NASA NTRS2018

Investigating Microbiome Differences Between Red Romaine Lettuce Grown from Sanitized and Unsanitized Seeds

The International Space Station (ISS) as an integral component for the discovery and development of advanced robotics, materials, communications, medicine, agriculture, and environmental science due to it currently being the world's only microgravity laboratory of its kind. Because the ISS is a contained system with confined quarters, much research has been undertaken to assess and diminish the number of microbiological risks associated with astronauts inhabiting the station for extended periods of time. Notable microbiological risk factors include drinking water, air, and food. As an avenue for both mental/emotional respite and a source of fresh produce for astronauts, a vegetable production system has been employed on the ISS. In order to understand the microbial risks involved with a "pick and eat" vegetable system on the International Space Station (ISS), this study aims to compare microbial differences between sanitized and unsanitized seeds by tracking and identifying seedborne microbes throughout the development of red romaine lettuce (Lactuca sativa)-a plant species that has already been grown on the ISS.

Polanco, Jonilee A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Plant Microbiome 101

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Anirudha R. Dixit↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Understanding the Impact of The Deep Space and Lunar Environment on Crop Production and the Associated Microbiome

As the Artemis mission advances to the Moon, women and men will be venturing into dangerous environments and facing unique hazards. In addition to living in closed environments, the deep space environment adds high levels of radiation, the absence of Earth’s magnetic field, and altered gravity. These elements present new challenges to long duration space flight that need to be overcome. To meet these challenges we have to understand:

C. D. Quincy↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Retrospectives: Current State of Knowledge on the Intersection of Spaceflight Stressors and Microbial Risks to Crew and Craft

OVERVIEW The spaceflight environment has several unique stressors that affect the health of both the crew and the spacecraft. An area of continued, albeit incomplete, study is the interaction of these stressors on microbial populations inherent to both astronauts and spacecraft surfaces and systems. A primary concern is the potential for the spaceflight environment to perturb the phenotype of these populations towards negative outcomes for crew and craft. In order to effectively mitigate these potential risks, they must first be characterized. We performed a retrospective literature analysis to assess the current state of knowledge regarding the affects of ionizing radiation and elevated CO2 on relevant microbial populations. The results of these retrospectives will guide next steps in the decisions of what (if any) further studies should be pursued and to guide decisions of the need for countermeasures. STRESSORS Ionizing radiation. The health risk involved with increased exposure to cosmic radiation has been studied in crew for 35+ years, with human health and cancer risk being the main focus. However, space radiation could also affect both the resident microorganisms aboard the ISS and the normal, healthy astronaut microbiomes that are of direct concern for crew health. A retrospective review of over 250 publications was accomplished looking at the impact of cumulative ionizing radiation doses lower than 3 Gy (chronic or acute) on microbial populations. Elevated CO2. The health risk involved with elevated atmospheric CO2 in spacecraft, primarily focusing on human toxicological risks, is understudied. The current Spaceflight Maximum Allowance Concentration for 24-hour average CO2 is 0.4% (3 mm Hg), which is significantly higher than terrestrial levels (0.04%). Whether these elevated ambient CO2 levels aboard spacecraft influence the diversity and phenotypic responses of the resident microbial communities from both the spacecraft environment (air, surface, water) and crew members (gut, nasal, skin microbiomes) is not known. A retrospective review was accomplished looking at the impact of chronic CO2 exposure up to 0.7% (5 mm Hg) for up to 6 months and acute exposure up to 2.6% (20 mm Hg) for up to 24 hours. CONCLUSIONS: MICROBIOME OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT The microbiome of the built spacecraft environment has been sampled consistently over the course of human spaceflight and significant advancements have been made in identifying microbial populations on the ISS. The dominant source of microbes on spacecraft surfaces are human-derived. Once in the spacecraft built environment, the extreme environment selects for features that enhance survival. While efforts to understand potential antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity of ISS isolates is robust, there is little to no understanding of which spaceflight environmental stressors, to include ionizing radiation or elevated CO2, drive the evolutionary trajectory of spacecraft-associated microbial populations. CONCLUSIONS: MICROBE-HOST INTERACTIONS The host-microbiome field has emerged as an important factor in human health on Earth as well in spaceflight. The field is struggling with the complexity of the system under investigation as there is substantial taxonomic and functional heterogeneity in these communities, making it difficult to establish clear stimulus-response dynamics. Taxonomic characterization is the norm; however, the functional role of each community member is key to linking environmental perturbations to potential dysbiosis. For both ionizing radiation and elevated CO2, the likely target of the perturbation is the host tissue, not the microbes themselves.. Any resulting changes to the microbial community composition and/or function is likely a result of adapting to those changes in the host physiology. RECOMMENDATIONS Emphasize functional characterization as opposed to taxonomic characterization of microbial communities. Increase the number of investigations using chronic, spaceflight-relevant doses of ionizing radiation. MoBE studies should move away from observational studies towards predictive modeling of community dynamics. Continue to develop scale-down models, such as tissues-on-a-chip & defined microbial communities. Focus on the crew response to elevated CO2 over MoBE considerations. Assess how direct contact with the hypercapnic environment affects skin microbiome dynamics.

retrospective↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Retrospectives: Intersection of Spaceflight Stressors and Microbial Risk to Crew and Craft

OVERVIEW The spaceflight environment has several unique stressors that affect the health of both the crew and the spacecraft. An area of continued, albeit incomplete, study is the interaction of these stressors on microbial populations inherent to both astronauts and spacecraft surfaces and systems. A primary concern is the potential for the spaceflight environment to perturb the phenotype of these populations towards negative outcomes for crew and craft. In order to effectively mitigate these potential risks, they must first be characterized. We performed a retrospective literature analysis to assess the current state of knowledge regarding the affects of ionizing radiation and elevated CO2 on relevant microbial populations. The results of these retrospectives will guide next steps in the decisions of what (if any) further studies should be pursued and to guide decisions of the need for countermeasures. STRESSORS Ionizing radiation. The health risk involved with increased exposure to cosmic radiation has been studied in crew for 35+ years, with human health and cancer risk being the main focus. However, space radiation could also affect both the resident microorganisms aboard the ISS and the normal, healthy astronaut microbiomes that are of direct concern for crew health. A retrospective review of over 250 publications was accomplished looking at the impact of cumulative ionizing radiation doses lower than 3 Gy (chronic or acute) on microbial populations. Elevated CO2. The health risk involved with elevated atmospheric CO2 in spacecraft, primarily focusing on human toxicological risks, is understudied. The current Spaceflight Maximum Allowance Concentration for 24-hour average CO2 is 0.4% (3 mm Hg), which is significantly higher than terrestrial levels (0.04%). Whether these elevated ambient CO2 levels aboard spacecraft influence the diversity and phenotypic responses of the resident microbial communities from both the spacecraft environment (air, surface, water) and crew members (gut, nasal,skin microbiomes) is not known. A retrospective review was accomplished looking at the impact of chronic CO2 exposure up to 0.7% (5 mm Hg) for up to 6 months and acute exposure up to 2.6% (20 mm Hg) for up to 24 hours. CONCLUSIONS: MICROBIOME OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT The microbiome of the built spacecraft environment has been sampled consistently over the course of human spaceflight and significant advancements have been made in identifying microbial populations on the ISS. The dominant source of microbes on spacecraft surfaces are human-derived. Once in the spacecraft built environment,the extreme environment selects for features that enhance survival. While efforts to understand potential antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity of ISS isolates is robust, there is little to no understanding of which spaceflight environmental stressors, to include ionizing radiation or elevated CO2, drive the evolutionary trajectory of spacecraft-associated microbial populations. CONCLUSIONS: MICROBE-HOST INTERACTIONS The host-microbiome field has emerged as an important factor in human health on Earth as well in spaceflight. The field is struggling with the complexity of the system under investigation as there is substantial taxonomic and functional heterogeneity in these communities, making it difficult to establish clear stimulus-response dynamics.Taxonomic characterization is the norm; however, the functional role of each community member is key to linking environmental perturbations to potential dysbiosis. For both ionizing radiation and elevated CO2, the likely target of the perturbation is the host tissue, not the microbes themselves.. Any resulting changes to the microbial community composition and/or function is likely a result of adapting to those changes in the host physiology. RECOMMENDATIONS Emphasize functional characterization as opposed to taxonomic characterization of microbial communities.Increase the number of investigations using chronic, spaceflight-relevant doses of ionizing radiation. MoBE studies should move away from observational studies towards predictive modeling of community dynamics. Continue to develop scale-down models, such as tissues-on-a-chip & defined microbial communities. Focus on the crew response to elevated CO2 over MoBE considerations. Assess how direct contact with the hypercapnic environment affects skin microbiome dynamics.

Countermeasures↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Integrated Impact of Diet on Human Immune Response, the Gut Microbiota, and Nutritional Status During Adaptation to Spaceflight

Long-duration spaceflight impacts human physiology, including well documented immune system dysregulation. Diet, the microbiome, and immune system function are interlinked, but diet is the only one of these factors that we have the ability to easily, and significantly, alter on Earth or during flight. As we better understand dietary impacts on physiology, we may then improve the spaceflight diet to improve crew health and potentially reduce spaceflight-associated physiological decrements. Increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables and bioactive compounds (e.g., omega-3 fatty acids, lycopene, flavonoids) and therefore enhancing overall nutritional intake from the nominal shelf-stable, fully-processed, space food system is expected to serve as a countermeasure to detrimental impacts to human physiology, including dysregulation in immunological profiles, the taxonomic profile of the gut microbiota, and nutritional status during spaceflight. In this study, first we sought to determine the effect of the nominal shelf-stable spaceflight diet compared to an "enhanced" shelf-stable spaceflight diet on human biochemistry, immunology, and the microbiome in a ground-based, simulated space mission. The ground analog portion of this study was conducted in the NASA Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Campaign 4 missions, which consisted of four 45-day missions with closed chamber confinement and realistic mission simulation to study effects on crew health and performance. As reported previously, analyses indicate beneficial associations between diet and markers of nutritional status, stress, the microbiome, and cognitive performance. Intake and beneficial associations varied by subject. This data will be used as a ground-based control for spaceflight, where the spaceflight environment (e.g., radiation, microgravity) will have additional impacts and the potential to evaluate effects of the diet will be greater. The second phase of this study is to occur on the International Space Station, where it is currently being implemented. The test plan is similar to that used in the HERA missions. The enhanced diet is intended to provide 25% of the crews’ diet with foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, lycopene, and flavonoids, along with more fruits and vegetables in general (the other 75% of the diet will be obtained from standard and crew preference items available on the ISS). Biological samples (blood, urine, stool, and saliva) are being collected from participants at selected time points before, during, and after the mission. Data collection also includes dietary intake recording and body mass measurement. Currently, 6 of 9 planned astronauts have completed data collection. Analysis of immune markers, latent herpes virus reactivation, the taxonomic and metatranscriptomic profile of the gut microbiome, and nutritional status biomarkers and biochemical metabolites will occur in batch to minimize sample handling variations. Mixed models statistical analyses will be used, incorporating random effects to account for repeated measures within individuals to assess the impact of diet on physiological outcomes. We expect this study to provide evidence of beneficial impact of this enhanced diet on crew health and adaptation to spaceflight. These data will aid in evidence-based mass-risk trades for food system design and development of targeted dietary interventions for future exploration-class space missions.

Grace L. Douglas↗