Bioplastic habitats on Mars could be built from algae

Future plastic habitats on Mars could be created from locally cultivated algae which could then host more algae cultivation operations. It has been shown that the first step in such a circular system operates in Mars type conditions in a laboratory, which could help future explorers create habitats on the planet.

What would you bring to Mars for such a business? Robin Wordsworth at Harvard University has a list: a few algae, a small bioreactor, a 3D printer and several containers of the bottle type made from bioplastic built with plant material. Wordsworth says it would grow algae in the containers, use the bioreactor to transform these algae in more bioplastics, then in 3D more containers to develop more algae, etc.

“The concept is that you use equipment to make your home, which can be built from the biology itself. You can create an autonomous system,” he said. Wordsworth and his colleagues have now demonstrated the first part of this cycle.

They cultivated green algae Dunaliella tertioleta In the containers made from a thickness of a millionter of a bioplastic called PLA. To match the Martian conditions, they placed each container in a room where the pressure was approximately 0.6% atmospheric pressure on earth and the air contained more than 98% carbon dioxide. More than 10 days, the researchers found that algae have developed and have photosynthesized at rates comparable to earth -type conditions.

The idea of ​​3D printing bioplastic habitats has about a decade, but the new experience shows that these could really support life, explains Amor Menezes at the University of Florida. “It’s extremely exciting. A trip to Mars and a stay on Mars will last about a few years, so we cannot take everything with us, ”he says. “This shows that bioplastics can potentially support life under Mars type conditions, and perhaps many useful objects during a Martian stay could be bioplastic.”

The success of the team required several years of experimentation with different conceptions of containers and strains of bacteria, explains the member of the Rafid Quayum team, also at Harvard University. “Physicists, engineers, planetary scientists, we all come together to bring together our brains and understand how to make environments outside the earth more habitable,” he said.

Now, the team wants to introduce even more extraterrestrial elements in their experiences by testing materials in a vacuum, to imitate planets or moons that do not have an atmosphere and take them to spacecrafts in low orbits around the earth.

“We believe it is a really convincing basic research issue. It is certainly important to allow people to live beyond the earth in the future, but also as a fundamental question, to understand the range of ways you can support life, “explains Wordsworth.