Engineering fungal mycelium to create viable building materials for on Mars is not a small challenge. This project, which was inspired by conversations with Lynn J. Rothschild from NASA, whom we owe thanks both for the inspiration and subsequent sparring on ideas, has relied on a several scientific fields to try to tackle the problems we have found along the way. Our design inspired by the idea of simple and cost-effective construction on Mars, which its simplest terms says that instead of spending millions if not billions on transporting the materials needed for habitats to Mars, one could instead bring a set of vials: One vial with a cyanobacteria, which will harness the carbon in the atmosphere and the oxygen in the martian ice to create biomass that can be used as ‘substrate’ for fungal cultures to create range of biomaterials. Our project focussed on the fungal aspect of such a system and how it could be used to create building materials for habitat construction on-site. This exciting challenge raises many questions that have to be answered and even more problems have to be dealt with. First off, how does one cultivate fungi on Mars? Moreover, Which fungal species should we use? How do we make the system cost-effective? Are the strength of fungal materials determined by any distinct genes and it is possible to regulate these in a way that will make our materials even tougher? We set out to answer these questions, the answers of which guided the creation of our final design

Building Buildings on Mars

How to build buildings on Mars

When the first Martian settlers arrive, They’ll want to erect livable habitats; buildings. When using conventional construction methods, they’d be restricted to either having to use heavy machinery in order to move local building materials, or having to bring the construction materials with them. Both options are an expensive cut in the weight and volume budget of any space mission, where, especially, mass is the key parameter of the mission cost. This Projects’ novel approach is for the astronauts to pack a bag with fungal spores, in order for them to bring a super lightweight building material that is able to quickly grow into any shape by the aforementioned procedure in the first section. An obvious question is then: What physical parameters will the fungal bricks have to withstand, for them to be used as building material on Mars? Initially, constructed as a building, they’d have to be able to contain a livable pressures. The average pressure on earth is 1.013 bar with 21% oxygen. The lowest “human life sustaining” pressure is 0.121 bar, assuming a 100% oxygen concentration. The average Martian pressure is 0.006 bar. This is a meere 0.6% of the average barometric pressure on earth. What building design/geometry is the best at containing pressures? Let’s investigate a dome design and a box design.

Fig. 1: - High school teams competing in iGEM(1)

Fig. 1: - High school teams competing in iGEM(1)