Hey Crew! Welcome to the mission brief! We are headed back to Mars and we are carrying some very special cargo…potatoes! There is a settlement on the far side of Mars in need of potato starch for their StarCrete.
Did you say Potatoes?
Yes, potatoes. You may not know this, but potato starch is an extremely important commodity for new planet colonists. Settling a new planet is even more dangerous and logistically difficult than settling a new continent. Unless, the planet is comparable to Earth, supplies critical to human survival must be carried with them, creating a complicated logistical equation balancing cargo space with necessity. One of those necessities is building materials. There are no factories, foundries, or smithies on Mars and there are certainly no trees. As colonists look to expand their settlements beyond their initial habitats, they require building bricks of some kind. But carrying cargo holds full of concrete, bricks, or cinder blocks between planets is impractical.
Potato Starch Provides a Solution…luckily!
Researchers from the University of Manchester in England experimented with materials found on the Moon and Mars to create an alternative version of concrete, named “StarCrete”. This new version has a comprehensive strength twice that of regular concrete on Earth which bodes well for unknown conditions on another planet. The potato starch acts as a binder for the concrete, which is the most positive outcome of this study. The researchers also tested human blood and urine as binders. Luckily for all settlers everywhere, potato starch works just as well! Bloodletting will not become a star-faring vocation. Colonists can build their settlements with all the sweat, tears, and potato starch they have…and their blood and urine can stay right where it is.
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Unit next time! May Imagination Reign!
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