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.
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."