Ever wonder how they get all that delicious "texas tea" out from the ocean floor?

Ever wish that they had a museum showing the massive industrial-scale technology necessary to keep up your environmentally destructive lifestyle?

Guess what? They do! It's in Galveston, Texas.

The Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig Museum is comprised of three main portions.

1.) The Museum and Education portion has a full derrick set-up, and also a blowout preventer, drill pipe, and a cementing unit (bring your camera)!

2.) The Offshore Pioneers Hall of Fame features the bold visionaries who were willing to see the profit in exploiting a volatile, finite natural resource (hint: there's a President in their Hall of Fame)!

3.) Educational Programs to enhance public knowledge, which even includes "field trips and overnight and summer camps." Bring your hard hat, Jimmy! This here's a working vacation.

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On July 12, 1933, the first three-wheeled, multi-directional Dymaxion car rolled off the factory floor at this location. Housed in the former factory building of the Locomobile company, the Dymaxion car was developed by Buckminster Fuller as an addition to his line of Dymaxion brand products developed to improve all of humanity's living conditions.

The Dymaxion car could carry 11 passengers and reached a documented speed of 90 mph. The rear wheel (of the three-wheeled car) powered and steered the vehicle, a departure from contemporary design.

At the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, an accident with the Dymaxion car damaged the first prototype badly, killing the driver, and seriously injuring the two passengers; one of whom was William Sempill, aviation pioneer and Japanese spy.

Investors backed out, partially out of fears that the new, efficient and economical car would eliminate current vehicle distribution channels and second-hand markets.

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At one time the largest and deepest gold mine in North America, the Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota is currently being used for scientific research.

In the late 60's, Raymond Davis, Jr. and John N. Bahcall conducted the Homestake experiment, where they deduced that neutrinos were one third the previous expected mass. Further reproductions of the experiment in Japan, Russia, Italy, and Canada led to the conclusion that solar neutrinos have three different oscillations. This work led to the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics, which Davis shared with Masatoshi Koshiba of Japan.

Neutrino research continues at the location. On July 10, 2007, the mine was selected by the National Science Foundation as the location for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL).

The mine has limited viewing and a visitor's center, with above and below ground tours.

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This former site of the oldest, deepest, and richest iron ore mine in Minnesota is now the location of the Soudan Underground Mine State Park.

On the National Register for Historic Places since November 1966, the mine has been making headlines in recent years for the experiments conducted at the bottom of the mine to detect dark matter.

Since the bottom of the mine is shielded from cosmic rays, scientists from the CDMS-II (Cryogenic Dark Matter Search) team have been keeping chunks of germanium and silicon at absolute zero to see if any WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) bounce into them.

There has been evidence of interaction with WIMPS, but a new super-sensitive detector should provide more definitive results.

A separate experiment, called MINOS, is being conducted at the same location to detect neutrinos. Tours of the Soudan Mine are available.

As most people know, dark matter and neutrinos were made by Jesus to test our faith.

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The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center that specializes in the creation of robotic planetary spacecraft, Earth-orbit and astronomy missions, as well as NASA's Deep Space Network. Located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles, JPL is on the border of the cities of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena. JPL is jointly managed by the California Institute of Techology (CalTech) for NASA.

JPL has been responsible for many of the unmanned spacecraft that have explored the solar system: Ranger and Surveyor programs (Moon-60's), Viking program (Mars- mid 70's), Voyager program (Leaving the solar system, still in progress) and many more.

On August 6, 2012, JPL's most advanced rover to date (named Curiosity) will land on Mars. The lab had to develop a new "skycrane" method of deployment to accommodate the enhanced rover (check out a sweet animation here).

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