Fungi

The additive manufacturing technology is very promising technique for utilising in situ resources on the Moon and Mars. However, when using the indigenous resources, it is also important to consider the investments needed for:

a) prospecting to locate and validate the accessibility of indigenous resources

b) developing and demonstrating capabilities to extract indigenous resources

c) developing capabilities for processing indigenous resources to convert them to needed products

d) any ancillary requirements specifically dictated by use of ISRU

In the last case, fungi based biocomposites might offer a cost effective alternative for constructing structures in situ. In situ manufacturing of fungi structures would require bringing seeds of specific fungi to space which then would grow into composite structures in situ. However, only a minimum amount of seeds should be brought from the Earth for the pilot structure as the seeds for the following projects would be produced in situ. The production of fungi structures could be low cost and could require only limited human assistance, eliminating therefore costly and time consuming locating, validating and extracting processes of local resources