Could that quaint stem cell experiment done by Mark
Shuttleworth in the International Space Station represent the future of
biotechnology?
By: Ringo Bones
South African I.T. entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth – whose trip
to the International Space Station back in April 2002 not only made him the
first African to go into space, but also, one of the experiments that he did on
the ISS at the time could signal a brand-new industry, namely “space-based
biotechnology”. This is more than just a good thing because even now, more than
15 years after Shuttleworth’s so-called working vacation in the ISS, the only
serious money-making enterprise of our current space exploration programs is
space tourism. Could the manufacture of useful pharmaceutical and biological
products in the weightless conditions of low-Earth-orbit be a source of serious
money that might make space travel finally pay its way in a an economically
viable manner?
Though quite controversial when Mark Shuttleworth did the
experiment back in 2002 in the International Space Station nonetheless given
that this was the height of the US President George Dubya Bush era “conservatism”
where anything remotely related to stem cells is taboo to his voting
constituency, it did manage to generate groundbreaking knowledge hitherto
unknown before Shuttleworth got the resulting data of his experiment. The
result of Shuttleworth’s stem cell experiments in the weightless conditions of
the International Space Station back in 2002 had shown that stem cells in the weightless
conditions of low-Earth-orbit develop into a form that’s far more useful for
medical use. According to Mark Shuttleworth; “Understanding these cells holds
the key to healing serious injuries where the cells in one part of the body
have been damaged beyond repair.”
