To boldly go where no cockroach has gone before

news @ nature.com-Space hotel gets a check-up - Inflated craft is holding up, but fate of guests remains uncertain.

This is funny: the small prototype inflatable space hotel has got cockroaches already:

The cockroaches were last seen alive on 16 June, when they were loaded in mesh-covered boxes into the craft. They were left in captivity, dining on water and dried dog kibble, until the delayed launch on 12 July subjected them to vibrations and acceleration. They were then in a vacuum for a few minutes before the Genesis I craft was deployed and inflated.

That would be enough to kill many creatures, but not necessarily the hardy cockroach, which can survive many weeks without food. Charles Cockell, now a professor at the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute of Open University, UK, once studied how well cockroaches can withstand a drop in atmospheric pressure. At 100 millibars — one-tenth of normal atmospheric pressure - the bugs actively pumped air into their abdomens to survive, he found, swelling themselves up in the process to about one and a half times the normal size. "It's pretty gross actually," says Cockell.

Bigelow Aerospace tested a number of different cockroaches and found that the Madagascar hissing roach, which can grow to more than 7.5 centimetres long and can weigh as much as 24 grams, proved that they had the right stuff by enduring more than 2 hours in a vacuum. "After 20 to 30 minutes they came back to life and we thought 'Oh my gosh, they deserve to go to space'," says Bigelow.

Let's hope that space radiation doesn't turn them into super mutuant cockroaches who return to earth to create havoc. (I like to consider all possibilities.)