Life on Mars? – Speculative approach on material experiments in the context of Mars habitation

Innovative materials have been an emerging trend in design and other fields. This trend makes sense when we have met the limit of the planetary boundaries, and everything we need from now on should be sustainable, circular, and regenerative. The trend is expanding fast, and designers are growing fungal materials in laboratories. Designers are now entering the area that is mainly seen as scientists’, chemists’, biologists' territory. More bio-based materials-, energy-, and food solutions are engineered in laboratories because of these worldwide resource challenges. The space-related industry is commonly the front line to apply emerging technologies. The plan of going on an interplanetary voyage is also discovering the possibility to live in extreme conditions. Space exploration has been rapidly growing over the past decade. In 2020 there were three mission launches towards Mars, which makes this topic very current. This thesis explores the possibilities of a designer to benefit from this phenomenon and take space, specifically Mars, as a target for design. This thesis looks into the future through the fungal perspective. The thesis observes new emerging technologies and the designer tools to interact with them. The framing is a speculative design where the methods of material exploration and the future scenarios are in focus. The main element that follows through the thesis is fungi. The first part of the design process follows a hands-on material exploring a method to produce an artefact using Martian soil, plant substrate and fungi. The fungal artefact opens the conversation about how fungi could benefit the possible human settlements on Mars. The second part of the process focuses on scenarios where the different fungi species and emerging technologies propose various fungi-related applications on Mars. The scenarios reflect on the material exploring and fungi based future technologies. Throughout the thesis process, it becomes evident that fungi provide a natural material solution in the context of more sustainable practices. When combining something living into something non-living, the results might be surprising and unexpected and that gives good guiding lines for designing with nature. There is a lot to discover in the fungi world, whether the applications will occur on earth or in space