When they opened a rarely-accessed service panel in Mir's Kvant-2 Module and discovered a large free-floating mass of water. Samples extracted from the globules by syringes and returned to Earth for analysis contained several dozen species of bacteria and fungi, plus some protozoa and dust mites.
Aboard Mir, colonies of organisms were also found growing on "the rubber gaskets around windows, on the components of space suits, cable insulations and tubing, on the insulation of copper wires, and on communications devices," says Andrew Steele, scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington working with other investigators at the Marshall Space Flight Center In Alabama. Aside from being unattractive or an issue for human health, microorganisms can attack the structure of a spacecraft itself. In short, germs can be as bad for a spacecraft's health as for crew health.
