ISRO and IISc Bengaluru develop sustainable process to make space bricks on lunar surface

A team of researchers from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru has developed a sustainable process to make space bricks on the lunar surface.

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Key-points

Named as space bricks, it could be used to assemble structures for habitation on the moon surface in future.

The process enables making load bearing bricks by using lunar soil, bacteria and guar beans.

The process developed now uses urea sourced from human urine, which could be mixed with lunar soil to build structures on the moon.

This decreases the overall expenditure considerably. Sending bricks from Earth is not viable as it takes 7.5 lakh rupees to transport one pound of construction material.

Since guar gum is used instead of cement, there will be a lower carbon footprint. The bacteria is added to further crystallize the brick in any shape needed.