Douglas Adams might have had the idea first, but now a Japanese artist has put it into practice.
Tokyo's Azuma Makoto has worked with JP Aerospace to send a bonsai tree and a bowl of plants into space, suspended beneath a balloon.
The result is a set of pictures as beautiful as they are haunting, illustrating the fragility of life at the very edge of the Earth.
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The balloon, Shiki 1, was launched on Tuesday and reached 91,800 feet before the balloon burst. The flowers, alas, were lost at 87,000 feet.
In a New York Times profile Makoto said "I wanted to see the movement and beauty of plants and flowers suspended in space".
"I always wanted to travel to space. This is a dream come true."