 The course of this country's future in space has been set. Space station freedom in low earth orbit. A permanent base on the lunar surface. And then, before the year 2020, a man mushroomed to Mars. Many challenges to be met in achieving these goals is an efficient, reliable way to provide spacefaring crews with fresh air, clean water, and precious food. Carrying enough of these vital supplies on board would be costly and in many cases impossible, especially for lengthy missions. Seeking alternatives, researchers around the country, including a group at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, are developing a system where plants recycle air, water, and waste and provide food. Growing plants in a water-based nutrient solution eliminates the need to carry heavy soil into space. The work of Dr. Steve Schwarzkopf, an engineer at Lockheed in Sunnyvale, California, demonstrates how important it is to control the content of nutrient solutions. He's discovering that when tomatoes and lettuce are grown in the same solution, the lettuce doesn't fare so well. What we do not know yet is whether this effect is caused by the tomatoes putting out some kind of a chemical into the nutrient solution through the roots, or whether it might be due to the fact that they're taking up some nutrient that the lettuce needs and just not letting the lettuce get it. Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston are growing plants in soils similar to those on the lunar surface. Their test chamber allows them to work at reduced atmospheric pressures, likely to be used in habitats on the moon and Mars. The JSC team is also working to adapt physical chemical systems from the Apollo and Shuttle programs to recycle onboard breathing air. Dr. Mark Kliss at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, is integrating other recycling subsystems into a facility called the salad machine. Air circulated through a growth chamber collects moisture released by leaves. This air is then drawn through an opening in the rear of the chamber and piped into a condenser which removes the water. Preliminary analyses indicate this recovered water is drinkable. This could now evolve into a different kind of system to where perhaps we could utilize gray water in the nutrient solution and then recover essentially potable drinking water. Recycling in Space enlisting the expertise of scientists and engineers around the country to support life beyond Earth.