But the space agency will assist in an effort to relocate70,000 sea turtle eggs from northern Gulf beaches that have been affected by the BP oil spill.
To save them, biologists are carefully digging up 700 sea turtle nests by hand, with each nest containing approximately 100-120 eggs.
The eggs will be placed inside Styrofoam coolers and buried in the damp sand taken from their nests, and then transported in a temperature-controlled truck to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Researchers will monitor the eggs until they hatch, after which the young turtles will be quickly moved to nearby beaches so they can make their voyage to sea.
One of the greatest challenges and sources of opportunity for modern engineers is thinking up ways to repurpose the waste material that pervades our planet. Many organizations are already finding clever ways to tackle this issue. For example, every year the PBS show Design Squad holds a “Trash to Treasure” competition, which challenges students to design something useful produced from waste materials. Now meet Waste for Life, a non-profit coalition of students, designers, and engineers who are working in Argentina and Lesotho to upcycle waste into usable materials:
