There's no single definition of what we consider space. Some types of high-altitude balloons can easily take you to the edge of what most people consider space, which is at 100km above sea level. Or around ten times the distance from earth than your average commercial airplane.
You're making a lot of assumptions on your second point. How do you know that EpiPens won't degrade when flying? There are some conflicting statements in the article, but it seems like you could make a good case for that assumption, based on their findings. If radiation from space transforms epinephrine we probably want to know about it so we can adjust recommendations for storage.
> Some types of high-altitude balloons can easily take you to the edge of what most people consider space, which is at 100km above sea level. Or around ten times the distance from earth than your average commercial airplane.
In the end, any discussion on this turned rough the moment the article started with 'Elementary school students in Canada recently schooled NASA scientists'. It makes everything suddenly a students vs scientists thing, and the details in the article are lacking or inconsistent.
In my eyes, it should just be removed from Hacker News. We don't need this clickbait here.
There's no single definition of what we consider space. Some types of high-altitude balloons can easily take you to the edge of what most people consider space, which is at 100km above sea level. Or around ten times the distance from earth than your average commercial airplane.
You're making a lot of assumptions on your second point. How do you know that EpiPens won't degrade when flying? There are some conflicting statements in the article, but it seems like you could make a good case for that assumption, based on their findings. If radiation from space transforms epinephrine we probably want to know about it so we can adjust recommendations for storage.