Cook is developing a community of microorganisms for use in recycling the water used in hydroponics systems.
Hydroponics systems grow plants in nutrient-enriched water instead of soil.
If successful, Cook's research could reduce the payloads of water, food, and oxygen loaded onto outgoing space flights. Water recovery, or recycling, in particular, promises the most substantial savings in resources. Cook, who worked at Kennedy Space Center for five years before coming to CEB, is developing a community of microorganisms that can be inoculated into rhizospheres the plant's absorbing root-soil interface to maintain a healthy and productive hydroponics system aboard spacecraft. The pattern of the continental population-threat correlation indicates that per capita human impacts are initially very high and asymptotically diminish with increasing population size. The benefits of Cook's research might also accrue to those who never leave the Earth's atmosphere.