The planned colonization of Mars in the future years needs new building materials, because astronauts will need somewhere to shelter from the adverse conditions of the Red Planet. And scientists have developed a new type of such material, which was called "space concrete". Its peculiarity is that together with Martian dust, it contains such unusual components as potato starch and salt.

As the publication Futurism writes, space concrete is stronger than the usual Earth concrete. And he doubled the performance of the previous material based on blood and urine, developed by the same team of researchers at the University of Manchester.

To build buildings on Mars will be quite difficult due to the fact that to do this on the planet will have to deliver a lot of equipment and materials. Therefore, scientists decided to think about how to create materials from what is already on Mars. To create StarCrete, they mixed artificial Martian dust with Earth's potato starch and added some salt to it. What they got is about twice the performance of ordinary concrete.

According to the idea of the developers, the Martian dust will be easy to collect on the spot, and the starch will be extracted from potatoes, which can be grown directly on Mars. The main part of the root vegetable will be used for nutrition, and the cleanings and residues can be used for construction needs.

Previously, the same group had mixed artificial Martian dust with human blood and urine. The resulting material also turned out to be stronger than ordinary concrete, but the problem with its manufacture was that it would require a lot of blood. And if urine in sufficient quantities on Mars could still be extracted, with this component there were big problems. Therefore, the researchers moved on and the new version surpassed all their hopes.

According to scientists' calculations, from 25 kilograms of dehydrated potatoes delivered to Mars, it would be possible to obtain so much starch that it would produce 500 kilograms of StarCrete material, enough for 210 kilograms of bricks made from it. "We have changed our approach to developing this space concrete because it is likely that colonists on Mars will not want to live in houses built from urine and blood," said University of Manchester research participant Aled Roberts.

Also, according to the developers, their idea can be used in terrestrial conditions to create a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional concrete. Now the production of this material produces up to 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

Earlier OBOZREVATEL told why people can not find life on Mars.

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