Building houses on Mars with the blood of astronauts ? This is the proposal ofa study by researchers from the University of Manchester published in September 2021. If the solution may at first glance seem a little crazy, it is quite rational and rather clever. Because if the transport costs associated with sending material from Earth are exorbitant, martian colonists will have to rely on an available resource, and largely neglected until now: themselves.
Astronauts, a neglected resource on Mars?
$ 2 million : this is the estimated price to transport a single brick on the red planet from then Earth. Yes, only one. Colonization is expensive …. Hence the observation of the University of Manchester team: future Martian colonists will have to be ingenious to achieve habitable constructions there.
The red planet has of course rocks, and soil that should provide a small part of the necessary materials, but what the study recalls is that the crew itself is a significant resource. After conducting experiments, they showed how a common protein in blood plasma, called human serum albumin, could simply replace concrete.
Serum albumin, pmore resistant than concrete
Indeed, these blood protein ont the particularity of “curdling”, to form an extended structure with interactions called “beta sheets”. Being very binding with Martian or lunar dust, they could constitute a serious alternative to concrete. And free, above all.
Effective and unique, the idea is not new. As scientists remind us, humans have already in history used animal blood as a binder for mortar. So rather than developing ultra sophisticated technologies, it is sometimes very useful to draw on the past and be inspired by “medieval technologies“, emphasize the researchers.
When tested, blood proteins have shown greater resistance than that of concrete. Resistance that might even be reinforced with urea (component of urine), but also sweat and tears. According to their estimates, a 2-year mission, the maximum lifespan on the planet according to a recent study, would be sufficient to allow 6 members of the crew to manufacture more than 500 kilos of such material.
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