Fungi in space

That's what Martian colonisation
should look like

I recently came across a web site recruiting a crew to go to Mars. The project's name is Mars One, and their plan is to set up the first permanent extraterrestrial human settlement, and also make a reality show which would finance its operations. To date, about 78 thousand people have submitted their applications, although this figure is rather misleading since only about 700 out of these actually sent in complete applications, including the fee.

The scheme has already been multiply criticised for not being feasible, mostly for financial reasons. I also disapprove, and predictably so, because there seems to be no place for fungi in their plans for life support modules.

Generally, given the diversity of possible fungi uses, it is surprising how little presence they have in schemes for space colonisation. Mars One project aside, several governments are currently making plans for constructing a permanent lunar base in the next decade, and those look fairly realistic to me. However, no one seems to be paying any attention to the potential use of fungi: all references I've managed to find online were dealing with unwanted fungal infestations and how to contain them in enclosed space habitats.

I really don't understand why. Fungi are an excellent source of food, both directly as edible mycelium or fruit bodies, and indirectly through increasing the yield of food plants. In addition, they can offer production of cheap biofuel from plant waste and also provide packaging and structural materials as a renewable alternative to plastics.

Right, now if you'll excuse me, I have these calls to make to NASA and RosKosmos. They must be shown the errors of their ways immediately.

Image: This is my photo of an artist's vision of a Mars colony; the author of the painting is Diana Nurtdinova from Pervouralsk, Russia.