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Comment by optforfon | Hacker News Reader

So are there are any cool applications?

Maybe I'm having a lack of imagination... but I have no idea what I'd do with one even if I wasn't constrained by size. Even on the ISS they seem to have run out of interesting things to do (last I heard they were growing lettuce in space...). Just wondering if anyone has got any cool ideas

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> last I heard they were growing lettuce in space...

And that is not interesting ... why? Growing food in space is an incredibly fascinating area of research and vital for human spaceflight beyond cis-lunar space. Additionally, micro-gravity offers a unique opportunity to study the core mechanisms for growth, with the necessary spin-off of helping develop more robust crops back on Earth.

It's interesting but it's also already being done, and there is (presumably) also a long list of other upcoming projects being developed by folks with big-money (e.g. NASA, ESA). The question, then, is what might small-money folks do with a satellite like these?

Yes, it is fascinating and eminently useful for space exploration. The whole domain is a fascianting optimisation problem. Do you use natural light, and require a large surface area. Or is it more efficient to use electricity and have a larger volume fo growing space?

I would love to know if you could grow creeping vines in space, maybe around strands of led lights.

Okay, growing lettuce in space is better than not doing it at all... but how many billions of dollars are you willing to pay for it? Lots of research helps with "beyond cis-lunar" exploration. Maybe building a biosphere in antarctica? While I'm glad it exists, the ISS is a very expensive project that seems to do rather insignificant research

What's so uninteresting about growing lettuce in space? Isn't it at least a little bit awesome that they're able to achieve some small aspect of self-sufficiency in orbit?

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