Water-based cleaners would be kind of hard to use in zero gravity, wouldn’t they? And cleaning the outside of the spacecraft is a whole nother problem.
With a vacuum? 
I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.
But really couldn’t they use a vacuum? Or perhaps moist cloths?
Would they need to clean the outside of the space craft? Would it even get dirty?
I’ve seen it mentioned before on these boards that bacteria/viruses/etc can survive the trip into and returning from the void, so what if we had to protect against Martian plagues? Or, vice versa, prevent our Terran plagues from corrupting the delicate Martian biosystem?
However, it is worth mentioning that I cannot recall offhand if those germies were carried on the outside of the spacecraft or on the inside, so my entire premise could be pretty bogus.
Although, I do remember that a great deal of care was taken to maintain the sterility of the variety of probes we have sent into other atmospheres. So *somebody *must think it is possible that they hitch a ride.
Well, there’s lots of little bits of dust floating around up there, and I’ve read that materials in the vacuum of space can break down over time, releasing gases and causing discoloration on the outside of the craft.
Inside the spacecraft, sponges. Outside the spacecraft, who cares?
In light of my previous post regarding extraterrestrial study, isn’t the sterility of the outside of the spacecraft a concern? Granted, this concern is limited to the odd extemophilic organism or two, but I’m sure somebody at NASA cares. We don’t want to force panspermia, do we?
Of course, what do I know about such things?
Please forgive the vagueness of my response in GQ, but it’s been a few years since this happened. I used to work at an explosives testing facility. One of our capabilities was gun tests. We ran anything from 16" air guns to 110mm tank rounds to… well, you name it. There was a series of tests we did that I don’t remember the exact details of. The premise was that they took a rock, I don’t remember if it was a Martian rock, a lunar rock, or just one that had a similar composition, and shot 1/2" ball bearings into it. I don’t remember if the rock had bacteria, the ball bearing had bacteria, and the other one was made sterile, or if they both had bacteria. Anyway, after the impact, we kept them separated and took them to a lab for some type of testing. Sorry I don’t have more details, but I was more interested in working with the car bombs and the rockets for the sled track at that time, so I don’t remember the detail. But, yes, somebody thinks it’s possible and has done testing about the transfer of bacteria and other organisms in that type of extreme environment.
Well, since we stopped going to the Moon, manned spacecraft have never left low Earth orbit, so it’s not an issue now. But if we do send humans to Mars there may well be some concerns about this.
They don’t. That’s why they are referred to as: PIGS IN SPACE. (sorry, a little muppet humor)
One of the tasks during the current Shuttle mission involves some cleaning: Spaceflight Now | STS-126 Shuttle Report | Endeavour to launch on 'home improvement' flight
(scroll down towards the end).
I would have thought that the outside of a spacecraft would get nicely sterilized by the heat of re-entry.
Some extremophilic microbes may be able to do just fine in the heat of re-entry.
Meteor showers.
Indeed… Considering the number of rocks that hit earth every day infested with god knows what, sterilizing the shuttle when it returns shouldn’t be a huge concern.
They probably will do all sorts of sterilization and quarantines after a mars mission though.
Inside the station, a damp cloth/sponge will clean just fine.
Comet.
When they need to really sterilize something, they use moon shine.
Isn’t any organism that can withstand that heat going to be able to withstand whatever puny chemicals we might think to scrub on them, too?
Ah, very interesting.
You know, the ISS is getting pretty big now. It would be cool if there were a life-size model on Earth that you could go and see. Anyone know of anything like that?
Not necessarily. Just because an organism can withstand heat/radiation/vacuum of space, doesn’t mean it can necessarily withstand certain ph levels or toxic chemicals. There are many different kinds of extremophilic organisms.