Bengaluru: Aloke Kumar and his team are building a luxury condominium with elaborate private quarters, separate workspaces, and even a gym. But it isn’t in a posh area of Bengaluru, Delhi, or Mumbai–it’s in outer space.
“This is designed to be a home for astronauts on interplanetary missions. It can be built on the Moon, Mars, or any extraterrestrial object,” said Kumar, an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru. His groundbreaking design for a space habitat called the Bhartiya Extraterrestrial Expandable Modular Habitat, or BHEEM, is a futuristic abode engineered for work—and stay—in space for extended periods.
Kumar’s team is on a deadline.
India has set a target to build its very own space station—Bharatiya Antariksha Station—in line with the International Space Station (ISS) by 2035. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is also racing against time to land the first Indian on the Moon by 2040.
At IISc, scientists are laying the groundwork for these aspirations. They are building space bricks using lunar soil simulants, creating modules for astronauts living and working in the space station, and imagining and preparing for the colonisation of planets.
These experiments have leapfrogged India into a larger international community of space architects. In Massachusetts, the Aurelia Institute is building a habitat that can be launched and assembled in compact stacks of flat tiles. And NASA wants to build houses on the moon for both astronauts and civilians.
These goals are not far-fetched, said S Somanath, former chairperson of ISRO. Early research around space habitation will give India an advantage in such an eventuality.
“There could be a time when the Earth goes extinct. We never know. Or there could be a time when Earth’s resources aren’t enough to meet the needs of its population. Humans will have to adapt and look for alternative habitable planets,” he said.
But the immediate goal for Kumar and his team is Gaganyaan—scheduled to take flight in 2026 with three astronauts—and India’s 2040 moon mission. The logistics have to be built for humans to survive in space. This is the reality for the IISc team.
“When George Méliès made Le Voyage dans la Lune–considered the first science fiction film–in 1902, travelling to the moon, let alone living on it, was unimaginable for humanity,” said Kumar, a sci-fi buff.
“Some very exciting work is happening around space habitation across the world, and India is not far behind,” he added.
Preparing for space living
A dozen large, grey-coloured tiles are stacked in a corner of Aloke Kumar’s lab. They look like the remains of a floor or bathroom renovation left unattended by a careless mason.
But these unremarkable, drab tiles can withstand asteroids, meteor strikes, solar flashes and zero gravity.
The BHEEM panels will be made of composite—probably space-grade– titanium with an inflatable structure to maintain internal air pressure. A single panel is about 2.5 metres in length; six panels will be joined to create a single module in an igloo design.
Kumar is not afraid to dream big.
There could be a time when the Earth goes extinct. We never know. Or there could be a time when Earth’s resources aren’t enough to meet the needs of its population. Humans will have to adapt and look for alternative habitable planets – S Somnath, former ISRO chairperson
What he has in mind is nothing like the ISS’ space habitation designs–basic, machine-like living spaces.
“With this design, we can one day even build villas on the Moon,” he said about his grand vision, which takes into account the comfort of astronauts. It can also be replicated and expanded one day, when people finally start living in space.
“You can keep adding quarters to this space like a never-ending jigsaw puzzle,” said Kumar, lifting up a miniature model of what the module would look like on the Moon. It took him three years of research to fine-tune the material. His paper has just been published as a pre-print.
The team has also created small, golf ball-like joints to piece these tiles together. These joints are enough to air-lock the quarters inside and prevent external conditions from seeping in. The tiles can be joined to build bedrooms, washrooms, labs and gyms.
Kumar and his teammates demonstrated how the panel can be used with the joints. The final model habitat stands on a replica of the lunar surface, with India’s flag towering over it.
These tiles are easy to transport and are designed to fit into medium-sized Indian rockets, which have relatively limited payload capacity. Once on extraterrestrial land, astronauts or robots can easily join them to build any structure.
“A single payload of the Starship is sufficient to deploy this layout, providing twice the volume of the ISS,” said Mrityunjay Baruah, a primary member of the team along with design researcher Amogh Ravindra Jadhav. The Starship is a two-stage, fully reusable, heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX.
BHEEM’s modular nature, shade and design ensure that astronauts can comfortably conduct daily activities.
Jadhav described their research as “living in two worlds.”
“It was a different feeling to design life [in space] beyond the universe, brick-by-brick,” Jadhav said, his eyes sparkling with excitement about the potential of his work.
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Space bricks
Aloke Kumar has led some groundbreaking research around space habitation. In 2020, his lab developed ‘space bricks’ using lunar and Martian soil, bacteria and urea.
Unlike Earth-sized bricks, space brick prototypes are finger-sized, weighing less than 100 grams each. But they can be shaped into any size.
With this design, we can one day even build villas on the Moon – Aloke Kumar, associate professor, IISc Bengaluru
The slurry for these bricks is composed of materials present in Martian and lunar soil. It is mixed with a biopolymer from the guar fruit, the sporosarcina pasteurii bacterium, and urea and nickel chloride. This mixture is poured into moulds and kept in an incubator for a few days to convert the urea crystals into calcium carbonate, which is where the magic happens. The crystals and biopolymers secreted by microbes act as cement or a binding agent that holds soil particles together.
“The bacteria seep into the spaces between the pores and use their own protein to bind the particles together. This decreases the porosity and makes the bricks stronger,” Kumar explained.
The team is now testing if these bricks will hold their own on Mars in a chamber lab that mimics the planet’s conditions and terrain—dusty, cold, with an atmosphere that’s 100 times thinner than Earth.
Last year, Kumar developed ingredients mixed with a lunar soil stimulant to strengthen the bricks. The samples of these bricks are neatly arranged in a glass box in his lab, like prized collectables.
Kumar is an expert in fluid mechanics and nanotechnology. Before returning to India, he was the Research Chair in microfluidics and biological systems at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
“When I was planning to return to India, it was the time when work around space habitation was picking up around the West. I saw that as an opportunity. I wanted to do significant work around the field in my own country,” he said.
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Living in space
Everyone’s aiming for a moonshot—literally and figuratively. NASA has an ambitious plan to blast a 3D printer up to the moon, according to a 2023 New York Times report. The aim is to build structures out of lunar concrete, and it has tied up with private companies and universities.
China is reportedly building lunar bricks while Colorado-based satellite manufacturer Sierra Space is experimenting with inflatable structures that can withstand five times the pressure needed to operate in space.
When George Méliès made Le Voyage dans la Lune–considered the first science fiction film–in 1902, travelling to the moon, let alone living on it, was unimaginable for humanity – Aloke Kumar, associate professor, IISc Bengaluru
Space scientists have extensively spoken about a future where humans live in space.
“While living on the Moon could become a reality soon, settling on Mars would take longer due to the technological challenges that still need to be overcome,” said former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino.
And India is not the only country looking to colonise space.
Setting up camps on the Moon that sprawl into townships and cities or boarding passenger rockets from Earth to commute to another planet for work are no longer imaginary concepts from Stan Lee’s Marvel Multiverse.
Last year, Elon Musk directed his SpaceX employees to build a design for a Martian city. The plan, though in its initial stages, has visualised small living dome habitats. The team is now experimenting with possible materials that can be utilised for building such habitats on Mars.
“There is a high urgency to make life multi-planetary. We’ve got to do it while civilisation is strong,” Musk said in a video posted on the social media platform X last year.
Before living in space, humans have to be able to survive in it. Radiation and gravity changes affect the body in myriad ways. To facilitate longer missions and future space habitation, NASA carried out unique experiments in 2021 to study how the human body responds to time spent in space. The experiments focused on crucial aspects such as bone and joint health, brain and behaviour, as well as cardiovascular changes.
Parallelly, the space agency is also experimenting with other crucial aspects of space habitation. These include life support, environmental control, radiation protection, exercise and health maintenance–factors needed to keep humans safe, healthy, and productive on long, intensive space missions.
But most of these modules are being designed as floater habitations, similar to ISS, and not as permanent structures.
Closer home, a team in IIT-Madras’ ExTeM or extraterrestrial manufacturing is looking at manufacturing in zero–gravity, near-vacuum environments for products to be used both in space and also on Earth.
“If we do end up going to space and having our own space stations, we shouldn’t be doing rudimentary experiments or relying on borrowed technology from other countries—we should have our indigenous ones,” ExTem founder Sathyan Subbiah had told ThePrint.
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The future
‘Made in India’ for space is the end goal for Aloke Kumar and his team at IISc. The 42-year-old mechanical engineer, currently leading research around space habitation in India, never thought he would branch out to space technology.
Until his PhD, he had not even seen a bacterium. Now, a large part of his day goes into experimenting with different types of bacteria and how they would react in space if used as binding agents.
If we do end up going to space and having our own space stations, we shouldn’t be doing rudimentary experiments or relying on borrowed technology from other countries—we should have our indigenous ones – Sathyan Subbiah, ExTem founder
Kumar, who is also an avid astrophotographer, first began exploring space habitation designs while on a photography trip with Indian Air Force test pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, one of the four astronaut-designates in the Gaganyaan mission. ‘Shux’, as Kumar calls him (also his call sign), is currently training in the US for the Axiom-4 Mission, a private spaceflight to the ISS scheduled this year.
He is one of Kumar’s teammates credited with IISc’s space habitation plan. ThePrint tried to reach out to Shukla for comment, but he wasn’t available due to his ongoing mission training in the US.
“During Covid-19, when Shux and I were looking at the night sky during one of our photography sessions, we started discussing what life on Mars or the Moon would be like,” Kumar recalled.
The discussion stayed with both of them, and they began working on it after Shukla joined IISc for his Master’s degree in 2023.
The Gaganyaan mission has infused Kumar with renewed vigour. With the first Indians slated to fly to space soon, the possibilities of his research are endless.
“These designs are not just prototypes for the labs. I want these to become functional products for space when habitation becomes a reality,” he said.
India’s recent initiatives, such as its signing of the Artemis Accords in 2023, reiterate the country’s dedication toward advancing its space programme.
“All these commitments by the Indian government have been a shot in the arm for scientists like us. We will build a future where humans can live and survive in space. Soon, hopefully,” said Kumar.
This report is first in a three-part series titled ‘Building Blocks in Space’. Read all articles here.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)