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The Toaster-Sized Tech That Could Make Future Mars Missions Possible

The Toaster-Sized Tech That Could Make Future Mars Missions Possible

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The Toaster-Sized Tech That Could Define​ Future Mars Missions

What will future Mars missions looks like? Senior reporter Tami Abdollah looks into new technology that could prepare the way for manned space missions. Rachel Uranga speaks with the founder of a bilingual publishing trail blazer. Meanwhile, USC announces the winner of its latest entrepreneurial demo day, and Jeff Bezos gets his comeuppance at the Oscars.

Today's stories

Roughly the size of a fancy toaster oven, MOXIE, which stands for the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Equipment, essentially produces oxygen from the thin Martian atmosphere, which is primarily made up of carbon dioxide, at a rate of about 10 grams of oxygen per hour. That's roughly enough oxygen to keep a small cat or dog alive. >>

A then-tech executive at Oracle in 2015, Steven Wolfe Pereira was a new father looking to do more meaningful work. So with his wife, who had run Twitter's multicultural market strategy, and their two good friends, they began pitching an idea of a bilingual children's book series to publishers. "I was aghast at the responses I was getting," he said. "They were like Latinos really don't read. It was really insulting." >>

A crowd of some 500 people clustered around booths at USC's Tutor Campus Center ballroom, reviewing vastly different products. A clothing brand made out of milk waste sat a booth away from a virtual reality clothing store, rideshare scooters were just down the row from massive cargo-hauling drones.

They were among the 50 startups competing at USC Demo Day to pitch their ideas to faculty and guest judges. >>

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was in attendance at the Academy Awards on Sunday night and even though there was no official host, comedians Steve Martin and Chris Rock took notice in a monologue that opened the show."He's got cash. When he writes a check the bank bounces," Rock said before three more jokes came the way of the billionaire. >>