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Chinese astronauts make rocket fuel and oxygen in space

(www.livescience.com)
298 points Teever | 3 comments | 24 Aug 25 17:54 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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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dr_dshiv ◴[26 Aug 25 23:07 UTC] No.45033429[source]▶
Over 1% of US land is devoted to biofuels. If we replaced those corn fields with solar, it would produce 4x the electricity currently consumed in the US.
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fooker ◴[27 Aug 25 00:31 UTC] No.45034034[source]▶
Sure if we could magically transport and store it. Like we can for liquid fuels.
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1. ben_w ◴[27 Aug 25 12:47 UTC] No.45038923{3}[source]▶
No magic required: the tech for transporting electricity predates writing, and that by about six millenia; while reusable storage was only about 27 years after dynamo generators, 1859 vs. 1832.

Both have since been improved upon somewhat.

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2. dr_dshiv ◴[29 Aug 25 21:25 UTC] No.45069571[source]▶
What are you referring to? Copper?
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3. ben_w ◴[02 Sep 25 11:17 UTC] No.45101518[source]▶
Mostly, but gold and silver are also simultaneously antiquity-era metals and great electrical conductors.

No generators to connect to a power grid, nothing to use the power for, but they could still transport electricity in the time before writing.