The Colonization of Mars: StarCrete

According to NASA and Elon Musk, we can expect first manned missions to Mars as early as 2030. Even though it is early to talk about an attempt to colonize our red neighbor, there are a lot of logistical hurdles that need to be solved until then.

According to NASA a spacecraft traveling at 39,600 kph would take about 7 months to reach Mars, travelling 480 million kilometers. SpaceX claims that it will be possible to transport up to 100 tons of cargo to Mars in their spacecraft named Starship.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk estimates that they will need to transport around one million tons of cargo to Mars to make a settlement there relatively self-sufficient. Doing some quick math, you can start to appreciate the scale of the Mars colonization project. It would take around 10,000 round trips to Mars and back.

What does not help the situation is the fact that there is a 26-month interval dictated by orbital dynamics when Earth and Mars align in a way to make the trip possible.

It is quite understandable that every free gram available on the ship is of huge importance, that is why it is necessary to try finding and using local resources on Mars. What is the most widely used construction material? It is concrete. In addition to being almost irreplaceable it is also very heavy.

Thankfully, British researchers have an answer: concrete that is produced using the surface dust of Mars, potato starch, and a little bit of salt that could be extracted from astronauts’ tears or sweat. 

The material dubbed “StarCrete” was created using simulated Mars dust. Tests have shown that StarCrete has twice the compressive strength of regular concrete. According to scientists a pack of potato chips would have enough starch to produce almost half a ton of StarCrete.

If we expect to one day make life on Mars sustainable, reinvention and tailoring of basic materials and routines to work on the Red Planet is paramount.