Its sounds like something out of a science fiction movie.
NASA has tapped UTSA to be part of a project that will build homes on the moon, and even Mars, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"Yeah, like being in a movie, right? It's like looking into the future. I'm very excited to be part of it," Engineering Professor Arturo Montoya says.
UTSA will be part of NASA's SmartHab project, which is building resilient deep space habitats that can adapt, absorb and rapidly recover from expected and unexpected disruptions. Montoya says space is a dangerous place.
"Conditions are very harsh, and you expect things are going wrong. But you have to anticipate for those things, because when they happen, you won’t have time to react."
Not only is it a fun project for students, UTSA’s JoAnn Browning, dean of the College of Engineering, says it raises the school's profile.
"This grant also illustrates our emphasis on multi-disciplinary research, as it brings together the fields of autonomous robotics, advanced computing methods for hybrid simulation, and sustainable civil infrastructure design."
UTSA along with the new institutes could receive as much as $15 million over a five-year period.