HUMAN blood, sweat and tears are often the basis of great enterprises - but could be put to even more practical use in space, under a proposal laid out in a new scientific paper published by researchers at the UK's University of Manchester.
Noting the incredible cost of transporting building materials from earth, the scientists have suggested an alternative for the colonisation of Mars, in the form of "cosmic concrete", created using human excretions mixed with Martian dust.
The paper noted that human serum albumin, a protein found in human blood plasma, is able to bind Martian or lunar dust to create a product which they have named AstroCrete.
The material has compressive strengths comparable to conventional concrete, and produced even more impressive results when urea was added.
Lead author Dr Aled Roberts said calculations confirmed that a team of six Mars colonists would be able to manufacture about 500kg of high-strength AstroCrete during a two year mission on the red planet.
The peer-reviewed paper was published this month in the Materials Today Bio journal.
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