In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU 1,2) activities including local material based building works are planned for the missions targeting the Moon and Mars, as well as rare extraction from asteroids (3). Although preparation for such missions are going on, interaction and collaborative work between architects, engineers, Earth and planetary scientists have not been well formulated yet. To support such synergic activities, under the EU funded ArchiSpace project (101183089) a joint glossary is being developed to see how researchers from these different domains consider the same basic terms.
Using literature survey a first list as a glossary is presented, containing both architecture, engineering, Earth and planetary science topics. Using the knowledge of the community and the general view, several important comparative aspects have been considered. The terms used in this glossary are accompanied with related aspects of classical architecture and engineering domains, as well as their corresponding information from Earth and planetary science.
There are specific meanings for almost all considered terms at the four different domains with focusing on the characteristics relevant to the given topic. Corresponding links are present between the versions how different domains consider a given key term (like soil, cementation, compaction etc.). The specific terms related knowledge between the different domains could be interconnected, however the information transfer between them is not straightforward and requires further improvement. Such transfer of information between these key terms can be supported by numerical values (density, adhesion, composition, grain size etc.), which should be tested by case studies for Moon and Mars surface habitat planning. The glossary will be presented at the meeting and the ongoing work welcomes contributors from various but mainly the architecture and engineering related topics.
References: (1) Jared et al. 2026. Planetary and Space Science 270, id.106229. (2) Gross et al. 2024. Acta Astronautica 223, 15-24. (3) Trigo-Rodríguez et al. MNRAS 545(1), staf1902
