NASAs wild plan to grow mushroom houses on the moon

NASA is cooking up a plan that’s straight out of a sci-fi movie: mushroom houses.Forget about blasting tons of concrete and steel into space — the space agency is betting big on fungus to build future habitats on the moon and Mars.With the cost of sending just one pound of material to the moon at a whopping million dollars, NASA’s looking for a solution that doesn’t involve shipping up bricks and boards.

Enter mycotecture—a cutting-edge method of using fungal spores and algae to literally grow structures once they land in space.“You can’t take boards or bricks,” Chris Maurer, founder of the architecture firm Redhouse, which is partnering with NASA on the project told Al Jazeera.

“So what are you going to build with?” The answer: lunar dust, water, and fungus.The process is pretty wild.NASA plans to send a sealed, inflatable mold to the moon, where fungal spores will combine with algae and water to grow into durable structures that can withstand the moon’s extreme conditions.

These mushroom-based materials have some serious perks, like shielding astronauts from harmful radiation and even blocking dangerous micrometeorites.“Radiation is the show-stopper for any manned missions,” says Maurer.

“That’s why we haven’t been back [to the moon] since the ‘70s.” He explains that mycotecture can block over 99% of radiation with just 8 centimeters of material, compared to the 10 feet of lunar dust needed to do the same job.That’s a game-changer for keeping astronauts safe.

NASA’s next steps involve planning to test small-scale models on the moon by 2028 and ramp up from there.But the dream doesn’t stop with the moon.

Mars is next on the list for these fungus-fueled homes.“It’s almost like science non-fiction,” Jonathan Dessi-Olive, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina told the outlet.

“They’re working on having [structures] basically cultivate on their own through multi-organism cooperation, which ...