Randian heroes in our midst.

What if I told you there was a man who helped pioneer e-commerce by starting Paypal? And that he is now using that fortune to build revolutionary new rocket ships because he personally wants to go to Mars?

As much as this sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel, Elon Musk is a very real man, with very real dreams to see humans living on Mars. When he realized NASA would not likely put men on Mars till will after his death, and that a colony was right out under NASA, Musk decided to take things into his own hands.

So far it's been a great success, his Falcon 9 rockets are now the standard by which commercial rockets are measured, development on his Falcon Heavy is well under way, and a Dragon spacecraft is currently docked to the ISS.

But Musk plans to go to Mars, and none of his existing rockets can carry enough payload there at an economical price.

That's why he is developing the MCT, a reusable rocket that would return to Earth for refueling and reassembly after each launch. The MCT is rumoured to stand for Mars Colony Transport, although no one is certain just yet, since Musk is playing his cards tight to his vest on this project.

Musk is the sort of man who does things for himself. He wants to travel to Mars and live there. Seeing that no one else was willing to build the ships he ands his fellow colonists will need, he decided to build them himself. For that, I say congratulations to Elon Musk, a man who will make his way to Mars because it's what he wants. The rest of us will benefit from his vision and his passion, as long as we stay out of his way.

Space commercialization is well under way.

This morning, a private company delivered supplies to a remote outpost, including fresh fruit, a rare luxury for this particular outpost.

That's because this outpost is the International Space Station, currently the only manned space station in orbit, and that private company was Space X. While this cannot be said to be a fully private venture since the contract was paid with taxpayer dollars, it does show that commercial space flight has reached new heights.

And many of Space X's new contacts will be fully private. They plan to deliver the Bigelow Commercial Space Station to orbit in 2014, and to provide the majority of transport to the station, all with their existing Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. An unmanned Dragon, atop a Falcon 9 is what Space X used to deliver fresh fruit to the ISS crew.

Bigelow plans for access to it's commercial station for $26.5 million aboard a Dragon, and rental rates as low as $25 million for two months. At only $51.5 million for a two month stay in space, the Bigelow Space Station may well trigger a space population boom, indeed, Bigelow is prepared to build about ten of them, and there's no reason they can't be placed outside of Earth Orbit, affordable space stations over the Moon? Over Mars maybe? The possibilities really are endless.

Augmented reality? Google has you covered.

(Full disclosure, I'm a Google fanboy, I use a Nexus 7 as my personal computer.) Google is just about to start what is effectively a 8000 unit public beta of their new technology, Google Glass, which will provide augmented reality, voice controlled point of view camera, point of view video chat, and GPS directions and route data  right in your line of vision! Is that a left or a right? Pretty hard too get confused when you are directly comparing your maps with the world in front of you.

Some people are criticizing Glass on the basis that all of its functions are already possible on top line smart phones. While this is true, these people are missing the point. Glass is about putting augmented reality within reach, if all it did was provide Google Now cards in my field of vision I'd be thrilled.

Glass is set to do a lot more then that though. The functions shown in the "How It Feels" product demonstration will open whole new worlds for microbloggers, recreational athletes, and for anyone who might find both their hands busy, but still need communications or information.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm eager to try Glass, and that I'll be purchasing the first full release model. At which point you can look forward to first person videos of gardening and hunting. Oh, I'm sure you're just ecstatic.