Lynn Rothschild | Nature’s Hardware Store: Building the Future with Biology

In her Long Now Talk, NASA researcher Dr. Lynn Rothschild explores how the extreme constraints of space travel can enable radical sustainability on Earth.

Hear how her teams have used mycelium, the root structure of fungi, to grow off-planet construction materials, and programmed bacteria to print new biological materials on demand.

Cells, Rothschild explains, are micromachines with a 3.8-billion-year R&D history. Her research harnesses these ancient biological processes to engineer living systems that make tools, materials, and medicines that could sustain astronauts and settlements beyond Earth.

This talk was presented October 14, 02025 at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco.

Episode notes: https://longnow.org/talks/02025-roths...

The event livestream is here: https://youtube.com/live/8435j107Yp8

This talk is part of Long Now Talks.

Launched by Stewart Brand in 02003, Long Now Talks has invited more than 400 leading thinkers to share their civilization-scale ideas with a live audience and millions around the globe tuning in to our podcast and videos. Long Now Talks are brought to you by The Long Now Foundation, which has spent the last 25 years igniting cultural imagination around long-term thinking.

By inspiring thought and conversation about how we've been shaped by the last 10,000 years and what might be in store for us over the next 10,000 years, Long Now Talks seek to expand our collective sense of the present moment. Long Now Talks cover futurism and speculative fiction; time, nature, and contemplative practices; the intersection of the humanities and sciences; the evolution of counterculture to cyberculture; cultural imagination, land art and public monuments; and of course, long-term thinking and being a good ancestor.

In our age of compounding crises, The Long Now Foundation is a counterweight. We are a force that imagines new possibilities, thinks critically, and takes action over the long term. We believe that when we all come together, bound by commitment and curiosity, audacious things become possible. Will you join us? https://longnow.org/join