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Chinese astronauts make rocket fuel and oxygen in space

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298 points Teever | 6 comments | 24 Aug 25 17:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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kevinmershon ◴[26 Aug 25 22:09 UTC] No.45032976[source]▶
> This is a similar reaction to photosynthesis in plants, which produces glucose instead of rocket fuel.

This is silly, but also begs the sillier question why we aren't bioengineering plants to produce rocket fuel

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andrewflnr ◴[26 Aug 25 22:20 UTC] No.45033082[source]▶
Why aren't we engineering plants to produce automotive fuel? We ought to at least be able to do diesel.
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1. QuadmasterXLII ◴[26 Aug 25 23:13 UTC] No.45033480[source]▶
We do and call it canola oil - which should give you an idea of whether eating canola oil is a good idea
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2. terminalshort ◴[26 Aug 25 23:18 UTC] No.45033530[source]▶
Internal combustion engines and humans fundamentally use the same chemical process to generate energy. The fact that something can be used as automotive fuel alone says nothing about whether or not it is safe for human consumption.
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3. zbentley ◴[26 Aug 25 23:22 UTC] No.45033567[source]▶
> same chemical process

Our digestive systems heat and oxidize hydrocarbons to generate kinetic energy? You sure about that?

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4. ◴[26 Aug 25 23:27 UTC] No.45033599[source]▶
5. fooker ◴[27 Aug 25 00:41 UTC] No.45034119{3}[source]▶
We do use oxidation to generate energy.

Of glucose, not a hydrocarbon, but there are plenty of organisms that use hydrocarbons directly.

We don't because we use glucose as our easily transportable fuel, which we evolved because plants happened to produce glucose when we evolved. If there were plants producing some hydrocarbon in fruits we'd have evolved mitochondria to use that instead.

6. dgacmu ◴[27 Aug 25 11:10 UTC] No.45038008{3}[source]▶
Different process, same outcome: hydrocarbons are broken down and oxidized into CO2. We just do it with some enzymes in the Krebs cycle instead of doing a high temperature reaction.