MUSHROOMS WITH A VIEW
Space missions test growing buildings out of fungus
If we have to flee Earth to take up residence elsewhere in the galaxy, you know what we need to take with us? Mushrooms. Or rather, fungal spores. Not to feed us on the flight over there, but to grow our houses with.
That’s the thinking behind NASA’s mycoarchitecture project. The space agency is concocting a plan to grow buildings made out of fungi on Mars. According to astrobiologist Lynn Rothschild, who works on the project, it’s a no-brainer when you consider the cost of launching a full-size building into space, versus some practically weightless life-forms that happen to be natural builders. “We want to take as little as possible with us and be able to use the resources there,” she says.
Many fungi, like mushrooms, grow and spread using mycelia – networks of thread-like tendrils that form sturdy materials capable, with minimal encouragement, of growing to fill any container. On Earth, fungi-fabricated structures are already used to make packaging for wine bottles and as particle board-like materials, and Rothschild suggests they could even be used for growing refugee shelters.
On Mars, the organisms would need a little water to get started, which could come from melted ice, plus a food source. The researchers envisage them being deployed in large bags that would be inflated on landing to provide a container to fill. These bags would contain the food source in dried form and offer the added benefit of preventing contamination of the atmosphere with alien fungi. Once the structures were fully grown, a heating element would be activated, baking the mycelium network like bread to harden it.
If you’re imagining organic-looking buildings with walls sprouting toadstools and orchids, though, think again. Rothschild’s current materials are more “like wholewheat bread that’s been left out”, although she says they could be brightened up by adding colour pigments, through genetic modifications.
Rothschild already has a myco-made stool in her office, which took her students about two weeks to grow, and the team has plans for full-scale structures. But for future space missions, they’d like to send an advance party of robots to do the work for them. “When I travel, I want a hotel to go to,” says Rothschild. “I don’t want to arrive at an airport and they say ‘we’re going to build the hotel tonight’ and so I think the ideal situation would be to send precursor missions where these things were erected.”