My understanding of why our clothes stink is because of bacteria eating sweat and dead skin.
So why in space can’t they just “wash” (Edit: By this I mean sterilize.) things by exposing them to the vacuum of space? Wouldn’t the extreme cold and vacuum cause all of the bacteria in the fabric to die out?
I know this is some NASA level stuff but I hope someone can atleast dumb it down to ELI-15 level for me.
In: Chemistry
Space will kill bacteria but it’s not going to remove the dirt from the clothes. So the clothes are still dirty, probably still stink and new bacteria will start to breed on it as soon as you take it back inside. They don’t change clothes because there’s bacteria on them, they change them because they’re grimy and spacing clothes doesn’t help with that.
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