Title far more interesting than actual article.

I disagree. While a bit cursory, it's a good little pick-me-up before I start the work day. Makes me thankful of modern medical knowledge.

Why isn't there a YC-funded space amenity startup?

We're a long ways away from being able to make a space startup on the kind of money that YC offers. It may not be completely impossible, but we'd need a hell of a lot bigger space economy for it to work. Right now private enterprise still can't put a person into space, let alone build anything like a space economy.

In fact, I have a hard time convincing any VC of an elevator pitch of the form "We're going to take your money, do [space thing X], then sell it to NASA!" That last step is just not going to happen, in general, regardless of what [space thing X] is, at least not with any probability that will entice a VC.

Worth the price of admission:

"Magellan, for example, lost eighty percent of the sailors on his Pacific voyage, and survivors described how 'to chew their rations, they had to keep slicing the swollen tissue of their gums away.'"

I actually found the article very interesting!

As an Australian I can see how people first arriving would be led to believe that there wasn't anything there to eat, most of the native food we do have either looks totally gross or is well hidden! Kangaroos are very tasty though!