(Video production: Ramiro Angulo)
It is still science fiction, but the main special agencies in the world have been working for years on various projects to establish permanent bases outside the limits of our planet. The first focus of attention is our satellite, and the US is already working on the Gateway project, a space station that will orbit the Moon and will greatly facilitate landing missions on its surface.
One of the many problems to be solved to establish a permanent base outside our planet has to do with the transport of the material necessary to build it. Especially in the case of Mars, we are talking about a very long space trip, and carrying very heavy material can imply unaffordable energy costs. One of the options, raised by the European Space Agency (ESA), would be to build the base with materials from the Moon itself and using 3D printing.
NASA, for its part, has an original project based on so-called synthetic biology, which consists of using living material as technology itself. Specifically, he proposes using mushrooms as raw material for space constructions.
Why mushrooms?
The vegetative part of the fungi is called mycelium, a structure formed by a set of fine interwoven cords – the hyphae – that form very complex networks. In fact, the mushrooms that we see in the field are only a tiny part of the fungus –the reproductive part-, while, underground, the mycelium can extend for meters and meters.
Scientists working on the Myco-architecture project say that under the right conditions, mycelia can be used to create new structures, from leather-like materials to building blocks.
Transporting the mushrooms is cheap, because they could be carried dehydrated in very light and compact structures. Upon reaching its destination, it would be enough to add water to the basic structure and wait for the fungi to grow. Always, of course, in isolation conditions to avoid contaminating the surface of the Moon or Mars. Once the proper structure is achieved, they could be baked to stop their growth and avoid that risk of contamination or even keep the construction in a dormant state.
“Until now, the designs that have been considered to establish themselves on Mars are turtle-houses, that is, we would take them ready-made from Earth. It is a safer plan, but very expensive at the energy level ”, explained Lynn Rothschild, principal investigator in the initial stage of the project. “Instead, what we could do is take the mycelia with us to develop a functional habitat at our destination.”
In fact, some fungal materials are already produced commercially, because they are good insulators, fire retardants, and do not produce toxic gases. An example is bricks made from mycelia, yard waste, and wood chips. There are even synthetic furniture prototypes created from this base.
The three layers of the Martian home
One of the implications of making a house with a living organism is that it also needs to eat. This is where cyanobacteria, microorganisms capable of photosynthesis and obtaining oxygen and food for fungi come into play (in fact, lichens are a symbiotic association between, precisely, cyanobacteria and fungi).
The structure proposed by NASA scientists consists of three layers. The outermost is an ice dome (made from resources from the Moon or Mars) that offers insulation and protection from harmful radiation. Then, the cyanobacterial cover, which, as we have mentioned, would offer oxygen and nutrients. And finally, the structure made of mycelia, developed to grow in this contained environment and that would later be baked to kill life forms, providing structural integrity and avoiding contaminating the surface of Mars or the Moon.
And, beyond making bricks and furniture, fungi open up a whole world of possibilities: water filtration systems, extraction of minerals from wastewater, bioluminescence, humidity regulation… “When we design for space, we have much more freedom than on Earth, ”explains Rothschild. “And, once we have designed these prototypes for other worlds, we can bring them back to ours.”
