Researchers develop space building material with blood and urine

Manchester. Blood is thicker than water. Researchers at Manchester University are likely to have said this to themselves when they were looking for a possible building material on the surface of Mars. The result is a building material made from extraterrestrial dust and human body fluids. The substance known as Astrocrete therefore even has a higher compressive strength than conventional concrete, according to the study published in the journal “Materials Today Bio”.

The scientists came up with the idea because the transport of building materials for a future manned mission to the Red Planet is likely to be too costly. So they looked for raw material sources on site – and found what they were looking for in the bodies of astronauts. In addition to Martian dust, a protein (human albumin) found in the blood and urea, which is contained in urine, tears or sweat, are required for this.

500 kilograms of Astrocrete possible in two years

With the technology, a crew of six astronauts could produce around 500 kilograms of astrocrete within a two-year stay, according to a statement from the University of Manchester. If it is used as a kind of mortar for sandbags or bricks made from pure Martian dust, the amount of astrocrete made possible by an astronaut is sufficient to expand the future Martian colony to include housing for one person. In the experiment, the team used simulated Martian dust to produce Astrocrete.

Scientists had previously tried to develop working technologies to produce concrete-like materials on the surface of Mars, said researcher Aled Roberts involved in the study. He added, “But it never occurred to us that the answer was within us all the time.”

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