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"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson

Lunar Concrete  
  A building material using lunar dust or similar surface material as a main ingredient.  

One of the basic problems of creating orbital cities or environments is the necessity of dragging everything you need out of the "gravity well" of Earth. A well-known solution proposed by various science fiction authors is to use materials from places other than Earth, where the energy cost of acquisition is not as large.

Tessier-Ashpool ascended to high orbit's archipelago to find the ecliptic sparsely marked with military stations and the first automated factories of the cartels. And here they began to build. Their combined wealth, initially, would barely have matched Ono-Sendai's outlay for a single process-module of that multinational's orbital semiconductor operation, but Marie-France demonstrated an unexpected entrepreneurial flare, establishing a highly profitable data haven serving the needs of less reputable sectors of the international banking community. This in turn generated links with the banks themselves, and with their clients. Ashpool borrowed heavily and the wall of lunar concrete that would be Freeside grew and curved, enclosing its creators.
Technovelgy from Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson.
Published by Bantam in 1988
Additional resources -

A concrete mixture is an interesting and natural choice. I don't think I've heard it mentioned elsewhere in science fiction; there may be an earlier reference in Heinlein.

See also Lunar Propellants and Lunar Concrete for more.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Mona Lisa Overdrive
  More Ideas and Technology by William Gibson
  Tech news articles related to Mona Lisa Overdrive
  Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson

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