We’re going to be on the Moon a lot more often soon, and that means we’ll need places to rest, conduct research, and work there. Building habitats and maintaining them will be tough, but bacteria could come to the rescue by helping repair cracked bricks made from lunar soil.
That’s what researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in the southern city of Bangalore have come up with in their work using a soil bacterium called Sporosarcina pasteurii. This technique could help extend the lifespan of structures built on the Moon in the coming years. Talk about thinking ahead.
This builds on research from 2020, where IISC scientists created ‘space bricks’ using a calcium-based lunar soil simulant, urea, the aforementioned S. pasteurii, and guar beans. The idea there was to find sustainable and inexpensive ways to construct buildings on the Moon.
published last week in the journal Frontiers, the scientists created defects in the sintered bricks and poured a slurry of S. pasteurii, guar gum, and lunar soil simulant into them. The slurry penetrated into the cracks, where calcium carbonate produced by the bacteria filled them up. The bacteria also produced biopolymers which glued the soil particles with the residual brick structure, making them almost as good as new.
NASA’s Artemis IV mission, scheduled for September 2028, will see four astronauts land on the Moon in the Orion spacecraft and enter Gateway, the first-ever lunar space station. From there, they’ll conduct moonwalks and experiments. There are plans to subsequently build the Foundational Surface Habitat of the Artemis Base Camp in the 2030s.
Indian Institute of Science
