New Bacterial Life-Form Discovered in NASA and ESA Spacecraft Clean Rooms
I wonder if this article is confusing two different types of clean room.<p>I can understand why a lander like Phoenix has to be biologically clean, needing bio-isolation and alcohol-swabbed surfaces, but why is there this requirement for the Herschel space telescope? It stays in space. Surely the telescope would just require protection from dust, etc. during assembly in an environment similar to a chip fab? I'm not too surprised that bacteria could find their way into such an environment.<p>Disclosure: Obviously I'm not a rocket scientist.