Recently it was reported that research scientists from the premier Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have developed a process to make bricks on the moon for habitation. The process involves extracting lunar soil and using bacteria and guar beans to harden it (soil) into brick-like structures for habitation on the moon in the future.

However, NDTV reported this news in a way to deliberately spreading mischievous information in order to cast aspersions on the efforts made by Indian scientists. In the headline of its report, NDTV claimed that Indian scientists were using urine to make space bricks when the scientists were, in fact, using urea.

(This tweet has now been deleted by NDTV)

Following this, a section of social media users including Ashok Swain started sharing the news report to take a dig at India and claimed that “India’s Obsession with Urine has reached the Moon”.

False claim

Responding to NDTV's news report, an assistant professor Aloke Kumar made it clear that urine was not used. Visibly irritated, he advised the ‘news’ network to change their headline and “pay your people enough so that they properly read press releases”. NDTV has now rectified its headline.

According to the press release by IISC makes 'urea' is only one of the key components. It says, “In what could be a significant step forward in space exploration, a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has developed a sustainable process for making brick-like structures on the moon. It exploits lunar soil, and uses bacteria and guar beans to consolidate the soil into possible load-bearing structures.”

The press release further said, “The process developed by the IISc and ISRO team uses urea — which can be sourced from human urine — and lunar soil as raw materials for the construction on the moon’s surface. This decreases the overall expenditure considerably. The process also has a lower carbon footprint because it uses guar gum instead of cement for support. This could also be exploited to make sustainable bricks on Earth.”

The researchers “first mixed the bacteria (Sporosarcina pasteurii) with a simulant of lunar soil. Then, they added the required urea and calcium sources along with gum extracted from locally-sourced guar beans. The guar gum was added to increase the strength of the material by serving as a scaffold for carbonate precipitation. The final product obtained after a few days of incubation was found to possess significant strength and machinability.”