Pykrete from Martian Regolith

in: space

With every milligram of weight mattering so much, there's no way it makes sense to bring building materials with us beyond the absolute bare minimum.
Bricks of a substance much like this could soon form the first semi-permanent off-Earth settlement humanity has ever created!

Thankfully its not that hard to generate something on-site. All it takes is some sand and brine to generate this Pykrete which can then form the basis for anything we'll need to build on the red planet.

We were provided with a composition for simulated martian regolith that we could make in our lab kitchen, and threw it in the freezer to simulate Martian temperature. Here is the result.

The time lapse is about 50 minutes at 20 degrees celsius.

Oct 9, 2015

For a second test, we improved the formula for genrating pykrete from the basic composition of Martian Regolith. This time we’ve added a bit of oil to the mix. The oil makes the whole thing slightly hydrophobic, so that it’s possible to drink from it, and it will also last longer at temperatures above freezing!
The timelapse is 1 frame every 3 seconds, so this thing lasted 90 minutes with weight on it.