This summer, I interned in an astrobiology lab at NASA Ames Research Center. My lab sought to determine how life adapts to habitable extreme environments and to microgravity during spaceflight. We hypothesized that this adaptation for survival in extreme environments is due to regulating a universal stress response through intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). My project focused on characterizing the response of C. reinhardtii, a model for growing life support systems in space, to heat shock as a form of oxidative stress by examining metabolic, biochemical and gene expression changes. In the lab, I focused on molecular biology research but learned the importance of collaboration with those of difference backgrounds. Over the summer, I fell in love with the interdisciplinary field of astrobiology and now see it as a possible career choice. Through my presentation, I hope to demonstrate how NASA is more than human spaceflight.