When tested, StarCrete’s compressive strength was 72 MPa, more than double that of conventional concrete. StarCrete’s strength exceeded 91 MPa when made from moon dust. The previous AstroCrete “out-of-ground” brick, created by the same team, had a strength of around 40 MPa, but the downside was that it required a constant supply of blood to produce building materials (yes, that included blood). “In any case, astronauts probably wouldn’t want to live in shell and urine houses.”– added a representative of the engineering team.
The researchers found that a 25kg bag of dried potatoes contained enough starch to produce almost half a ton of StarCrete, or 213 average bricks. The team also used simulated Martian soil mixed with starch and found that the addition of magnesium chloride, which can be extracted from the Martian surface and even from astronaut tears, significantly increases the durability of the bricks.
Source: Ferra
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