When Erika Flores applied for an internship at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2014, she wasn’t quite sure if her undergraduate work in environmental science fit at a place known for work much farther afield. “I wanted to fix our planet,” Flores said recently. “I didn’t really imagine myself studying outer space.” Not only did she land the internship at the La Cañada Flintridge institution’s Origins and Habitability Laboratory, but her contribution there also launched an ongoing partnership between the civil engineering department at Cal State Los Angeles and a lab dedicated to understanding how life begins. … But as it turns out, understanding how microorganisms came to be in Earth’s water is valuable knowledge to those tasked with cleansing that supply today, her mentor at JPL said. “There’s a lot of overlap between wastewater and astrobiology,” said Laurie Barge, a JPL scientist who co-leads the Origins and Habitability Laboratory with research scientist Jessica Weber. “Sounds weird, but it’s true.”