At the moment, building infrastructure in space is an expensive and difficult undertaking - let's say almost impossible. In the future, man's cosmic journey will make it necessary to rely on simple and easily available materials for astronauts, perhaps to be found directly on site. A team of scientists from the University of Manchester has created StarCrete, a material that could revolutionize the construction of infrastructure in space.
StarCrete, how is cosmic concrete made?
StarCrete offers a possible solution: Scientists experimented with a mix of (simulated) Martian soil, potato starch and a pinch of salt. The result was a material twice as resistant as ordinary concrete, ideal for a cosmic construction site: that of future Martian colonies. In their study published in the journal Open Engineering (I link it here), the research team demonstrated that potato starch can act as a binder, and that a binder: StarCrete showed a compressive strength of 72 Megapascals (MPa), more than double the 32 MPa of ordinary concrete. Surprisingly, StarCrete made with moon dust (regolith) even reached i 91 MPa.
It's also a marked improvement over previous research by the same team, in which the binding agents used were astronauts' blood and urine (yes, you read that right). Although the resulting material had a strength of about 40 MPa, in fact, the need to use blood made it an impractical option in space. Potato starch is better, right?
Can it only be used in space?
Not at all. When used on Earth, StarCrete could offer a more sustainable alternative to traditional concrete. Indeed, cement and concrete are responsible for about 8% of global CO emissions2, since their production requires very high temperatures and quantities of energy. StarCrete, on the other hand, can be produced in a normal oven or in a microwave oven at temperatures typical of "home cooking", thus reducing energy costs for production.
Who knows, maybe one day our grandchildren will find themselves celebrating a cosmic move to Mars, toasting with a glass of potato juice to the health of their new homes made of extraterrestrial dust and starch. After all, life on Mars isn't so bad, they'll think. Apart from the potato juice.
