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Published online 28 September 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news070924-13
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Space experiments should be done on the cheap
We rarely learn anything Earth-shaking from space labs, says Philip Ball - which is why inexpensive missions like Foton-M3 are the way to go.
Space experiments have rarely seemed as much fun as they did on the European Space Agency's Foton-M3 mission, which blasted off two weeks ago from Russia for a 12-day spell in low-Earth orbit.
Among the 40 experiments in the 400-kg payload were: a test to see if messages could be delivered to Earth from space by lowering them on a 30-kilometre-long tether (see 'Dropping a line from space.
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