In professor George Fox’s lab at the University of Houston, scientists are studying Earth germs that could be contaminating other planets. Despite extreme decontamination efforts, bacterial spores from Earth still manage to find their way into outer space aboard spacecraft. Fox and his team are examining how and why some spores elude decontamination. Their research is published in BMC Microbiology.
To gain access into the uber-sanitized clean rooms at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the world’s largest clean room, or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Caltech, California, employees pass through a series of lobbies. One, with adhesive floor mats, traps dirt carried on shoes. Another, about the size of an old phone booth, delivers a forced-air shower where dozens of air jets blow away dirt and debris. Only after these sterilization measures can they don the bodysuits, head covers and other disinfected regalia.