A Real Effort

It’s going to take literal blood, sweat, and tears to live on Mars.

A new study proposed that future colonizers will need to rely on AstroCrete to build on the red planet, a material made up of bodily fluids and Martian soil.

“Although it is a bit strange, blood can be utilized to create strong concrete or bricks for onsite construction on Mars,” a team of researchers at Iran’s Kharazmi University wrote in their paper.

The researchers analyzed eleven potential Martian construction materials, settling on a mix of regolith (Martian soil) and human serum albumin (HAS), a protein found in blood plasma, as a standout option. They claimed that this concoction can be further fortified with urea – a byproduct of sweat, tears, and urine, Popular Science explained.

The team explained that a single astronaut could produce enough HAS in about 72 weeks to construct a single-occupancy habitat, and it can also be 3D-printed on-site. The material also sidesteps Mars’ water scarcity, requiring none to mix.

“The goal would be to establish a self-sustaining city (self-sufficient megabase) on the surface of Mars, accommodating at least a million people,” they added, as reported by Universe Today.

AstroCrete is not particularly new: The odd material was first proposed in a 2021 paper by University of Manchester researchers.

“Scientists have been trying to develop viable technologies to produce concrete-like materials on the surface of Mars, but we never stopped to think that the answer might be inside us all along,” Aled Roberts, co-author of the 2021 study, said in a press release.

But AstroCrete isn’t the only contender. Sulfur-based concrete, crafted from Martian sulfur deposits, also shows promise. This material resists corrosion and performs well in Mars’ acidic and salty environments.

While these ideas might seem like science fiction, the quest to inhabit Mars demands ingenuity.

The novel approaches will also help in severely cutting costs in assembling resources on Earth and delivering them off-world, according to Futurism.