Thank god this guy chose to focus his energy and investments on transportation, one of the most-neglected fields from an investment perspective.  Elon Musk’s interview is a testament to what one man can aspire and do to inspire a generation with his ideas.

Awesome X 3! Three generations of Mars rovers (via Reddit).

Image Courtesy: NASA.gov via Reddit - Click image to enlarge

Via www.nasa.gov

The Energy Department has requested $30 million to relaunch a program to make radioactive plutonium-238, the supply of which is running low.

The Energy Department plans to restart its program of making radioactive fuel for NASA’s deep space missions, the agency announced Thursday, a decision that came only hours after the National Research Council warned that the nation was fast running out of the fuel.

Jen Stutsman, a spokeswoman for the department, said the agency had requested $30 million in its fiscal 2010 budget proposal to restart the fuel-making process. In its budget statement, the agency said it had “a long and successful history” of supporting NASA’s needs. It said it welcomed the National Research Council findings.

For such research, which includes the New Horizons mission now heading for Pluto and the Cassini mission now orbiting Saturn, the electricity that powers onboard instruments comes from devices called radioisotope power generators. The RPGs make electricity with the heat from the radioactive decay of small amounts of plutonium-238 carried on board. 

According to Ralph McNutt, a space scientist at Johns Hopkins University and co-chairman of the committee that produced the report, the United States stopped making Pu-238 about 20 years ago, with the end of the Cold War. Although Pu-238 is not weapons-grade material, it is a byproduct of making the more dangerous Pu-239, he said.

(Source: LA Times)

(Source: Autobloggreen; Scientific American)

It might seem a bit paradoxical to drive a HUMMER for 1,200 miles across the thin ice of the Northwest Passage with the goal of investigating climate change in the arctic circle, but that’s exactly what a crew from the Mars Institute is planning to do. The team will be charting the thickness of the ice as it moves at about 12 miles per hour over the surface, but the information gathered during the trek will really just be a bonus. The team’s first priority will be to see how the HUMMER-based rover fares in these harsh conditions. At some point, the Mars Institute hopes that this data will prove useful in helping NASA design human-toting vehicles that will be able to traverse the surface of Mars.

The Scientific American reports :  The trip using a modified armored Humvee vehicle will provide comprehensive data about the thickness of winter ice in the waterway through Canada’s high Arctic, said Pascal Lee, chairman of Mars Institute and leader of the expedition.  (Above Image on Right:  An ice-free Northwest Passage seen in this handout satellite photo from NASA taken in Sept. 2007. Photograph courtesy: Vancouver Sun via Terra Satellite/NASA, Reuters)

The scientists also hope to learn more about what happens to the microbes left behind by humans as they explore remote areas, amid concerns from some scientists about the detrimental impact of such journeys in space.

Click here to read the entire Autoblog article.

Source: Gizmodo.com

Remember when those two satellites collidedthe other day? Seems that they’ll be thespace junk gift that keeps on giving, as their 800-km debris orbiting field could hamper allfuture space launches.

“Future launches will have to be adjusted with regard to the fact that the debris [from the collision] has spread over an 800-km area and will gather at a common orbit in 5-6 years,” said Alexander Stepanov, director of the Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg.

Click here to read the entire article.