The humble fungus has remarkable properties that researchers at NASA’s Ames Research facility think could make it a useful material for building human habitats on the Moon and Mars. The mycelium — the branching, thread-like part of a fungus — has a higher bend strength than reinforced concrete and a higher compression strength than lumber. It acts as a fire retardant, and it is capable of growing and repairing itself.
“Right now, traditional habitat designs for Mars are like a turtle — carrying our homes with us on our backs – a reliable plan, but with huge energy costs,” principal investigator Lynn Rothschild tells SciTechDaily. “Instead, we can harness mycelia to grow these habitats ourselves when we get there.”
Researchers envision human explorers taking along a compact habitat built of a lightweight materials supplemented with dormant fungi. Upon arrival, they would unfold the structure and add water, and the fungi would grow around the framework into a functional human habitat. Writes SciTechDaily:
Just like the astronauts, fungal mycelia is a lifeform that has to eat and breathe. That’s where something called cyanobacteria comes in – a kind of bacterium that can use energy from the Sun to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and fungus food.
These pieces come together in an elegant habitat concept with a three-layered dome. The outer-most layer is made up of frozen water ice, perhaps tapped from the resources on the Moon or Mars. That water serves as a protection from radiation and trickles down to the second layer – the cyanobacteria. This layer can take that water and photosynthesize using the outside light that shines through the icy layer to produce oxygen for astronauts and nutrients for the final layer of mycelia.
That last layer of mycelia is what organically grows into a sturdy home, first activated to grow in a contained environment and then baked to kill the lifeforms – providing structural integrity and ensuring no life contaminates Mars and any microbial life that’s already there. Even if some mycelia somehow escaped, they will be genetically altered to be incapable of surviving outside the habitat.
The Ames team also imagines mycelia being used for water filtration and biomining systems that extract minerals from wastewater.