How to sterilize the interior of a spaceship?

[MircoMars]

[quote name='lajoswinkler']It's (UV-Light) just for certain applications. Germs hide in crevices, too. They can be shaded from the light, so it won't reach them.
[/QUOTE]

yeah I know, but since a problem is a story: perhaps it really is the only or best solution they have and they have to make it work somehow. use a uv flashlight and try the best, disassemble the whole module and hang it in a net overboard, or hold every piece to the [s]window [/s]hole in the hull...
there are so many possibilities on how to use all the different methods. if the only method at hand was (say) boiling everything in the last 100 liters of water they have, the author has to explain why it's the only way and how it is done (i.e. check if no better solutions are obvious or have your characters make a very dumb decision).
and perhaps the not perfect cleaning works well enough for a while. until they have to (dunno) change a lightbulb and someone gets infected again...

[lajoswinkler]

[quote name='MircoMars']yeah I know, but since a problem is a story: perhaps it really is the only or best solution they have and they have to make it work somehow. use a uv flashlight and try the best, disassemble the whole module and hang it in a net overboard, or hold every piece to the [s]window [/s]hole in the hull...
there are so many possibilities on how to use all the different methods. if the only method at hand was (say) boiling everything in the last 100 liters of water they have, the author has to explain why it's the only way and how it is done (i.e. check if no better solutions are obvious or have your characters make a very dumb decision).
and perhaps the not perfect cleaning works well enough for a while. until they have to (dunno) change a lightbulb and someone gets infected again...[/QUOTE]

Just remember that these

[IMG]http://eurus-wings.com/img/FLH_light.jpg[/IMG]

are in the range of deep violet with traces of UV-A, and they do not have a bactericidal effect. There are no germicidal [I]flashlights[/I] and certainly no such LEDs yet.

There are only mercury discharge quartz tubes.

[IMG]http://www.pro-floss.com/Content/images/sanitizer-splash-banner-mainv2.png[/IMG]

The smaller the thing, the weaker the effect. The one on the photo barely serves its purpose.

[Ten Key]

[quote name='JebKerboom']About the plague: Engineered lifeform. [I]Designed[/I] to be uncurable, but went out of control. Spread fast and undetected (long incubation period), so it was everywhere when cure started to be made (also, terrible neglect by the government. Our science can solve it, right? Wrong.).
[/QUOTE]

This was my first thought when I started reading this-- any pathogen that could overwhelm a civilization capable of suspended animation and interstellar travel would probably need to be an engineered bioweapon. If it was designed to be delivered in a missile or bomb, it is likely that the pathogen was engineered to be very tough-- dispersal by bomb is not exactly a gentle process.

However, unless the creators of the pathogen were completely off their rockers, there would have been some sort of counter agent. If the disease progresses too fast to treat once symptoms manifest, then it would have needed to be a vaccine. But there's always a chance of mutation that might make the vaccine ineffective.

I don't think it's necessary to have a fully detailed sterilization plan in your book-- you're telling a story, not writing an instruction manual. Is it possible that someone aboard the ship was involved in the research that created the pathogen? Or perhaps part of a team tasked with stopping it before the decision to flee was made? Perhaps they know enough about the organism to know how to disinfect the compartment, even if they don't know how to cure it? But revealing that knowledge might put them at risk when the rest of the crew figures out [I]why[/I] this person knows that?

Just a thought.