Funding has yet to be found but the plan is to use the same techniques local architect Nader Khalili believes could be used by astronaut construction teams. He initially developed his method as a way of housing those around the world who have no adequate shelter, but he believes it could also be applied on the moon or Mars. He's before his time,'' Hesperia Mayor Jim Lindley told Reuters. With the backing of the city council we can help him get the grants necessary to finish his project,'' he said. The ceramic houses were impervious to rain or snow and safe from all but the most powerful earthquakes.
Barbed wire is laid between the rows to reinforce and help hold the bags together.
Houses built by this method in Hesperia, an earthquake zone, have passed seismic tests and been granted approval by the city's building inspectors. In 1984 Khalili was invited to a NASA-sponsored symposium on lunar bases where he explained how geltaftan and superadobe could be adapted for lunar use. He conducted an experiment at the McDonnell Douglas Space Systems laboratories to show that the heat of the sun could be harnessed to melt and fuse the soil on the lunar surface, turning it into blocks, fibers or other shapes in an outer space version of geltaftan. Mike Duke, a staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, contracted by NASA to perform support services, praised the Hesperia plan. Duke said he knew of no other project like the one planned in Hesperia.