I saw that someone else had already made this comment; but I also noticed the reply was that it's a "bug"...  Seems the bug's been reported, but...

Anyway. as it stands now, the life support improvements are far from improvements at all!!!  Here's the breakdown, as I see it, so far (it should be noted that I've researched miniaturization):

Space    Range   Ratio

4.8 - 13.5 =  2.81

4.8 - 20.3 = 4.22

8.0 - 27.0 = 3.375

9.6 - 33.8 = 3.5208

So, I am guessing that the bug is in the first upgrade?  It should require a space of 6.4 and yield a ratio of 3.172?

Okay, so that makes this post worthless except to myself; as it solves the dilemma.  Perhaps it will resolve it for others as well (if they haven't already figured it out on their own).