He's before his time,'' Hesperia Mayor Jim Lindley told Reuters. We're going to help where we can, we can help with community support, community organization. With the backing of the city council we can help him get the grants necessary to finish his project,'' he said. From skyscrapers to mud huts Khalili, who used to design conventional skyscrapers before turning his attention to housing the poor, reached a milestone in his career 20 years ago when he found a simple way to make the traditional domed or vaulted mud-brick houses of his native Iran more resistant to earthquakes and weather. 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. 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. It's extremely exciting to be able to work on this,'' he said. 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.