RESEARCH
Bricks produced using mycelium, yard waste and wood chips as a part of the myco-architecture project. Similar materials could be used to build habitats on the Moon or Mars (Credits: 2018 Stanford-Brown-RISD iGEM Team)
Are fungi the next building material for Mars? Living on the harsh environments of the Moon and Mars will require new architectural ideas. For instance, how to get the construction materials over there? And how to construct them anyway. Earlier this year, Nasa Techbriefs spoke with dr. Lynn Rothschild, the principal investigator on the early-stage development called ‘myco-architecture project’ of NASA’s Ames Research Center. The project is investigating an innovative way of making habitats on the Moon and Mars. The idea is simple: don’t carry the materials to Mars, with huge energy costs, but simply grow them, using mushrooms, or more specific: the threads that make up the main part of the fungus, known as mycelia. 29 | INNOVATIVE MATERIALS 2 2020
