Plans sprout to grow mushroom houses on the moon

For fans of early 2000s kids’ TV, the phrase “Just add water” might conjure images of teenage mermaids. However, for NASA, it’s also the concept behind its latest lunar experiment. 

“You can’t take boards or bricks” to space, architect Chris Maurer tells Al Jazeera. “So what are you going to build with? […] You build with what you have there, and what you have there is going to be water, maybe, and regolith (lunar dust).” 

Maurer is the founder of redhouse, a US architecture firm that has partnered with NASA to research mycotecture – growing habitats in space from mushrooms. 

Astronauts would take fungal spores and algae into space, then gradually feed it with water and lunar dust that’s found on the moon. 

As the spores feed off this lunar material, they will grow a fungal material that can be heated and turned into bricks as strong as concrete.

“Explorers could travel with a compact habitat built out of lightweight material containing dormant fungi. By adding water, fungi can potentially grow around that framework into a fully functional human habitat,” NASA said. 

To protect the humans inside from radiation, the dome-shaped mushroom houses would be enclosed in a layer of frozen water ice. A second layer of cynobacteria would produce oxygen for the astronauts, and the mycelia – the fungal material – would be the sturdy base. 

Funding of $US2 million ($AU2.9 million) has been granted to NASA for the third phase of the Mycotecture Off Planet project, with the eventual goal of a future demonstration mission. 

If the mushroom houses are successful, NASA hopes space explorers will be able to set up home on Mars, complete with mushroom furniture. 

The architects even hope to create mushroom beds that could hold astronauts in place while in zero-gravity, comparing the concept to “a Hilton Hotel in the sky”.