Carbon
Humanity's two greatest frontiers -- the oceans and space -- have something in common: carbon dioxide (CO2).
The majority of the Earth's CO2 is absorbed into the ocean; with increased fossil fuel usage, this results in acidification and disrupts ecologically and economically critical marine processes.
The atmosphere of Mars, where we are sending humans in the next decade, is 95% CO2.
The major biochemical waste product of humans in a closed biosphere or life support system is CO2; the CO2 exhaled by astronauts during space flight (i.e., on the International Space Station), results in manifold health problems, from headaches to hypercapnia.
As a result, to both 1) protect our oceans from increasing acidification and 2) ensure our survival during long-term space travel, we need to find new methods for the “molecular recycling” of CO2.
To find the next generation of carbon capture technologies, we are exploring the most CO2-rich environments on Earth in search of microorganisms that have evolved to be hyper-effective at capturing carbon.
