Luna 2076

The formation of ancient rocks on the Moon may be directly linked to large-scale meteorite impacts, concludes a group of international scientists led by the Royal Ontario Museum after research a unique rock collected by NASA astronauts during the 1972 Apollo 17 mission to the Moon. The rock contains mineralogical evidence that it formed at incredibly high temperatures, in excess of 2300 °C/ 4300 °F, that could have been achieved by the melting of the outer layer of a planet in a large-impact event, reports Science Daily.

Researchers discovered in the rock the presence of a mineral known as baddeleyite, a stable phase arising from cubic zirconia, commonly used on earth as a substitute for diamonds in jewelry, which could have been formed only in rocks heated to above 2300 °C. While examining the structure of the crystal, the researchers measured the age of the grain, which reveals the baddeleyite formed over 4.3 billion years ago. Given that the high-temperature cubic zirconia phase must have formed before this then, they concluded that large impacts were critically important to forming new rocks on the early Moon.

“Rocks on Earth are constantly being recycled, but the Moon doesn’t exhibit plate tectonics or volcanism, allowing older rocks to be preserved,” explains Dr. Lee White, Hatch Postdoctoral Fellow at the Museum. “By studying the Moon, we can better understand the earliest history of our planet. If large, super-heated impacts were creating rocks on the Moon, the same process was probably happening here on Earth.”

Adds Dr. James Darling, a reader at the University of Portsmouth and co-author of the study. “These unimaginably violent meteorite impacts helped to build the lunar crust, not only destroy it.”

European researchers have found that the urea in human urine can be used as a “plasticizer” to combine with lunar regolith to make building materials.

The cost of transporting building materials to the Moon is so expensive — roughly $10,000 per pound — that scientists are looking for ways to utilize materials readily available on the Moon. Dutch, Norwegian, Spanish and Italian researchers theorized that urea could be incorporated into concrete to soften the initial mixture and make it more liable before it hardens, reports Phys.org.

“To make geopolymer concrete that will be used on the moon, the idea is to use what is already there: regolith (loose material from the moon’s surface) and the water from the ice present in some areas,” explains one of the authors, Ramón Pamies, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (Murcia). “But moreover, with this study, we have seen that a waste product, such as the urine of the personnel who occupy the moon bases, could also be used. The two main components of urine are water and urea, a molecule that allows the hydrogen bonds to be broken and, therefore, reduces the viscosities of many aqueous mixtures.”

Using material similar to regolith mixed with urea, researchers have manufactured concrete cylinders using a 3-D printer. The urea mixture supported heavy weights and remained almost stable in shape. Resistance was tested at a temperature of 80°C, and was found to increase even after eight freeze-thaw cycles like those on the Moon.

Next step: figuring out how to extract the urea from the urine.

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.