If humanity is to establish permanent colonies on other astronomical bodies, it must find some way of constructing buildings from local materials; transporting a single brick to Mars has been estimated to cost around $2m. Using local materials is known as in-situ resource utilisation.
Proposals for in-situ resource utilisation tend to focus on sparse water deposits and regolith (loose rock, soil and dirt) available on the Martian or lunar surface. However, there is an important overlooked resource available to any crewed mission: the crew themselves.
In a study ('Blood, sweat, and tears: extraterrestrial regolith biocomposites with in vivo binders') published in Materials Today Bio, scientists demonstrated that a common protein in human blood plasma - human serum albumin - could act as a binder for simulated Martian or lunar dust to produce a concrete-like material.
The material, which the scientists termed 'AstroCrete', has compressive strength...