[HN Gopher] Potatoes are better than human blood for making spac...
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Potatoes are better than human blood for making space bricks,
scientists say
Author : CharlesW
Score : 30 points
Date : 2024-10-05 16:45 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.space.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
| skybrian wrote:
| Study is here:
| https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eng-2022-0390...
|
| > Recently, corn starch was employed as a binder for inorganic
| aggregates such as sand and limestone powder. Termed CoRncrete,
| these materials displayed impressive compressive strengths as
| high as 30 MPa; however, moisture sensitivity remained a key
| weakness for practical Earth-based applications.
|
| > Having extremely limited amounts of water, the issue of
| moisture sensitivity is irrelevant for the Lunar and Martian
| environments - meaning a CoRncrete-like material could be well-
| suited for extraterrestrial construction. Furthermore, since
| starch is the primary constituent of staple foods such as rice,
| potatoes, and maize (corn), any sustained off-world habitat will
| likely have the capability to produce starch as food for
| inhabitants. To mitigate risks such as crop failure or poor
| yields, a surplus of starch will likely be produced under
| ordinary conditions: the use of surplus starch as a binder for
| regolith would therefore avoid the need for additional
| construction material fabrication equipment and supporting
| infrastructure.
|
| I think someone from the IgNobel award committee wrote that
| headline?
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| I was going to say a demented AI wrote the headline.
| HappMacDonald wrote:
| It gave me flashbacks of the Aliens in Satisfactory
| 10xalphadev wrote:
| That's CoRny...
| adamredwoods wrote:
| >> The blood and urine of astronauts, after all, are renewable
| resources, and they're available wherever an astronaut's mission
| might take them.
|
| I think the blood takes a bit more time to renew? Or are they
| expecting, uh, a bit more sacrifice...
|
| >> "Astronauts probably don't want to be living in houses made
| from scabs and urine," he said in a statement.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Billionaires say we should kill millions anyway, 'just to be
| sure'_
| idlewords wrote:
| That's gotta be a huge relief for the redshirts on the first few
| Starships to Mars.
| ordu wrote:
| Sometimes I fantasize about what lunar architecture might look
| like. Low gravity will enable architects to do pretty wild
| things. But with this material it may be even wilder.
| pennomi wrote:
| I'm still waiting for the inevitable Lunar Basketball Stadium.
| I'm mostly convinced that alone will fund space exploration for
| the coming decades.
| miah_ wrote:
| A SpaceX representative has done the math and while potatoes make
| better bricks, human blood is cheaper. So if you'd like to be
| part of Elons new Mars colony sign up for our mission at your
| local human grind^H^H^H.. gathering center!
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Science fiction already covered why you don't want
| 'Libertarian' billionaire types running your mars colony, so of
| course valley billionaires want to do it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8lT-Sn-HqE
|
| Just another instance of the Torment Nexus meme and valley
| sensibilities.
|
| I remember when I admired these people and we didn't have
| civilizational wide meme's about how evil they are. Sad how
| things turned out. If only it could have been different. But
| that would require, you know, basic human compassion when
| instead they could just build bunkers and distant Hawaiian
| island escape compounds. And we can't blame them really, it's
| in their nature. They can't resist taking the wrong lesson from
| science fiction dystopias and they played Fallout.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I'm glad Elon's plans aren't totally ruined as the end of the
| article says the space bricks will in part be made of human
| tears.
| personalityson wrote:
| I disagree
| caseyy wrote:
| It is notable that human blood concrete was still found to be
| stronger than ordinary concrete.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| It still could be useful in Ukraine to make use of all the
| blood and meat Russia sends everyday... 1000-1400 casualties
| every day or ~435k/y. They send specialist drone operators and
| even FSB and carrier naval units to the front on essentially
| suicide missions.
| hggigg wrote:
| Mark Watney approves.
| Lerc wrote:
| This seems to be targeted at other planets, not space-space.
|
| For space use I always wondered about how one could slice up
| nickel iron asteroids into 50x50x100cm blocks and then start
| building things out of those. Assuming you can do a clean cut the
| surface wouldn't oxidize so they should just contact weld back
| together.
|
| Slicing process left as an exercise to the reader.
| geon wrote:
| Was it Artur C Clarke who suggested melting an asteroid and
| blowing a huge bubble from it?
| Lerc wrote:
| I've heard of that approach. Not sure if it was Clarke, I
| always figured you'd need a lot of pressure to do that and it
| would be tricky to stop it from leaking out holes.
|
| Another idea I had was making a sphere of chicken wire around
| a small comet. If you melted the comet would the water go out
| and condense onto the chicken wire eventually making a huge
| hollow sphere of ice.
| more_corn wrote:
| Are thy trying for an ignoble prize? Because this is how you get
| an ignoble prize.
| metalman wrote:
| there were plans for extrusion spinning out vast orbiting fresnle
| lenses that could then be used to sinter,whatever/any planetary
| surface materials and presumably there is a way to automate most
| of the process of providing material and filling and emptying
| molds but hey potatoes gota be better than count brickula
| slwvx wrote:
| We already know how to use feces in making bricks; see the link.
| I participated in a construction project in Ecuador where cow
| dung was used in making mortar, so I know it can be done. Sure,
| feces can be used as fertilizer; both should be explored for use
| on the Moon and Mars.
|
| https://www.sciencealert.com/using-biosolids-for-bricks-coul...
| EPWN3D wrote:
| What a headline.
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(page generated 2024-10-05 23:02 UTC)