More Fun in the Solar System

Have we all accepted the fact that I love the Mars Exploration Project?  Exhibit A.  Exhibit B [I'm still a little sad about Spirit].  Good.

Some other fun at NASA:

-- Voyager 1 and Voyager 2: these guys have been flying since 1977.  1977!  That makes them older than me!  And Voyager 1 is sending back signals to Earth from 11 billion - billion - miles away, on less power than it takes to run three household lightbulbs.  How is that not amazing?

In the next billion miles or so, Voyager 1 is expected to cross through the edge of our solar system and into interstellar space.  I wonder what's out there...  In any case, their little nuclear reactors are projected to last until 2025 or so, so we have some time to find out.

-- Mars Science Laboratory: a new Mars rover named Curiosity launched four days ago.  It's bigger and heavier than Spirit or Opportunity, and has all sorts of fancy-schmancy equipment to tell us all about the Red Planet.

I hope they're teaching kids about this stuff in school.

Tangentially, NASA should get more money.  They're about the only government department that seems to get stuff right.