The Phobos-Grunt's lander was equipped with a small shovel to put about eight ounces of dirt into a tiny capsule to return to Earth.
NIF, in contrast, takes a tiny capsule filled with hydrogen fuel and crushes it with a powerful laser pulse.
DOE has spent nearly $800 million on the stadium-sized NIF complex in Livermore, California, whose 192 laser beams are supposed to ignite a tiny capsule of deuterium-tritium fuel in an effort to simulate exploding nuclear weapons.
But that time is spread over an increasing array of devices and, frequently, as a tiny capsule of attention as consumers multi-task, device in one hand, bus ticket in the other.
And perched atop that tower of kerosene and oxygen is a tiny capsule, with the volume of a handful of telephone boxes, and a couple of tonnes of supplies and three passengers crammed in among them.
Each glistening globe -- a dance of darkness and light, a tiny capsule whose pop releases an ocean -- could be the last.
The laser will power the $4 billion National Ignition Facility, sited at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which aims to produce fusion by using a blast of laser light to squeeze a tiny capsule of deuterium and tritium to incredibly high pressures and temperatures.
After numerous delays and cost overruns, NIF finally began operations in 2009, and managers set a 30 September 2012 goal of achieving "ignition" by using its 192 lasers to crush a tiny capsule of hydrogen fuel.
March 8: In a surprise announcement, President Bush tells reporters that NASA will produce a new "Survivor-like" television series, in which six people from different countries vie to see who can last longest while orbiting the moon in a tiny space capsule.
In a tiny space capsule called the Friendship 7, Glenn circled Earth for almost five hours.
