Here's an amazing demonstration of the cluelessness and credulity of reporters, particularly when it comes to NASA and space:

With the cost of gas hovering between $2 and $3 a gallon and the oil supply declining, scientists at NASA have discovered a potential new energy source -- helium-3.

When combined with water, the element creates energy.

Just add water? What a breakthrough! Guess we don't have to figure out how to do that complicated fusion thing.

Grigsby said he also plans to discuss NASA's other creations, including the ion motor. It's an engine that accelerates so quickly in space, picking up speed as it moves, that it creates artificial gravity.

A high-acceleration ion drive? Another breakthrough!

And of course, we get the usual spinoff argument.

Grigsby said most Americans don't understand the importance of NASA. It's more than space travel, he said.

"The problems we solve in space have a direct spinoff on people," he said.

Well, actually, maybe not that usual:

Even tennis shoes, with their rubber soles, are partly a NASA creation. Before the 1960s, shoes were all leather and, often, not comfortable.

Wow. Tang, teflon and tennis shoes! Who knew?

Guess those old Converses I wore before we got to the moon were a figment of my imagination. Or maybe I just forgot about the leather soles--it's been so long, after all.

Damn!

I never knew NASA invented Canvas and Rubber!

I remember back in the 70's, when I was a teenager, listening to some network newsreader covering a probe's approach to Saturn, and hearing him tell us that Galileo had discovered the planet. Not the rings or moons, mind you, the PLANET Saturn, which as we all know is visible to the naked eye. Kind of became the archetype in my mind of the lamebrainedness of journalist types when it comes to matters of science.

NASA must be responsible for easily 0.1% of innovation in the economy considering they make up 0.1% of the economy. I wonder if NASA has more or fewer patents per $ GDP than the rest of the economy.

Wow, my mother must have been a time traveller to get those canvas topped rubber soled Keds in the early 60's. Now I feel cheated because my Western Flyer bike wasn't a Fusion Flyer.

Don't forget velcro and tang. Where would we be if NASA hadn't invented those.

NASA must be responsible for easily 0.1% of innovation in the economy

If you account for the 10 managers assigned to everyone who actually does something at NASA, and the 35 hours a week required to fill out useless paperwork for those managers, it's actually a lot closer to 0.0025%.

Shortly before the first shuttle launch, the local planetarium put on a show dedicated to the shuttle.

It showed the shuttle itself visiting an asteroid, and using a mass driver in the payload bay to send raw material back to earth orbit for construction.

To top this, they projected a 360 degree lunar panorama onto the dome, and showed the shuttle gliding in for a landing on the moon.

I'm reminded of a .jpg image I have, whose source I don't recall (though a search on 'cnnsucks.jpg' might turn up something) which is someone's digital camera TV screenshot from CNN at the time of the Columbia disaster. The caption below the talking head:

"Shuttle traveling nearly 18 times speed of light."

Which I sent to a friend at JSC, noting: "Okay, either it was a warp-core breach, or someone at CNN *desperately* needs a physics lesson..."

The first time I heard the "energy from tap water" news story was 35 years ago when my plasma physics professor was interviewed about recent breakthroughs in nuclear fusion by the local newspaper. Seems they trot these sorts of stories out every time there's an energy crisis.
Sadly, it's not just the reporters who are technically ignorant, it's the vast majority of the folks they write for.

Helium3/deuterium fusion is considered the most likely, safest, economically feasible method to be available in our time. Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt makes a very interesting case for helium3 mining on the moon in his book "Return to the Moon". He also makes the case that it should be private interests not governmental interests who should lead the way. It's a pretty good read.

Brilliant,

Heinlein in the 50's with "man who sold the moon" defined (inexactly) a nuclear ion drive (x-fuel) but it took almost twenty years for NASA to discover Velcro, which was invented in the 50's because someone had a sheep dog, not because NASA pissed away 10% of the nation product.