\n Humans have grand plans for residing in space, from a new space station under development to a planned base on the moon. Some even hope that one day people can live on Mars. There\u2019s work underway to figure out how to build habitats to support those ambitions.\n <\/p>\n
\n One of the innovations being tested is TESSERAE: magnetic, self-assembling tiles. Invented by Ariel Ekblaw while pursuing her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the tiles can be stacked on top of each other inside a rocket and released in space, where they can autonomously attach to each other \u2014 employing electro-permanent magnets, cameras and AI \u2014 to create a predetermined shape.\n <\/p>\n
\n Once they\u2019re latched together, the structure can be pressurized, allowing humans to live inside.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey can self-assemble into something way bigger than the size of the rocket that they came up in,\u201d said Ekblaw, who is now the founder and CEO of Aurelia Institute, a nonprofit space architecture research and development lab that has further refined the tiles.\n <\/p>\n
\n That could allow humans to build \u201cscience-fiction-worthy, big, grand structures\u201d in space, she added.\n <\/p>\n
\n Starting in the late 1990s, it took dozens of missions<\/a> to assemble the International Space Station (ISS), which rockets carried piece-by-piece to low Earth orbit. In space, robotic arms<\/a> and spacewalking astronauts helped put it together.\n <\/p>\n \n Recent years have seen a number of companies developing new kinds of space structures designed to take up minimal space in the rockets that transport them, and testing new construction methods.\n <\/p>\n \n In 2016, Bigelow Aerospace sent an inflatable structure to the ISS. It was inflated with 25 short bursts of air over<\/a> 7 hours, and it remains attached to the ISS today.\n <\/p>\n \n Sierra Space has been testing its three-story inflatable habitat<\/a>, and earlier this year, Max Space, which has a strategic partnership with Voyager Technologies, unveiled new expandable habitat modules. \u201cWe need real estate that is scalable and built for how humans will actually live and operate off Earth,\u201d Saleem Miyan, its co-founder and CEO, told Space.com<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Some are trying to reduce the need to bring material to space at all. European Space Agency (ESA) scientists have explored making LEGO-type bricks from meteorite dust<\/a> and China is investigating how to make bricks<\/a> with lunar soil.\n <\/p>\n \n Sandra H\u00e4uplik-Meusburger, an architect and space researcher at the Vienna University of Technology, in Austria, told CNN that there are numerous challenges when it comes to building space habitats \u2014 from how to protect humans from radiation, to transporting materials, to how to design spaces \u201cthat can work for a long time for different kinds of people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Adaptable architecture, like TESSERAE, could be helpful, \u201cso that you can build something and maybe in 20 years you use it for something else,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n \n The technology\u2019s reconfigurability is one of its key innovations, said Ekblaw. \u201cYou could absolutely pop tiles off and pop new tiles on and reconfigure them,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s not just habitats. Some startups are looking at putting data centers <\/a>and solar farms<\/a> into space, to take advantage of 24\/7 sunlight. Others are hoping to take manufacturing<\/a> off planet Earth.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s like a gold rush at the moment,\u201d said H\u00e4uplik-Meusburger. There is \u201ca lot of interest from a lot of different players.\u201d\n <\/p>\n