By Moseley Labor

Having worked with the US Air Force and NASA, being nominated for the astronaut training and working on the Galileo Jupiter Probe and having over 40 patents, Lonnie Johnson has had a remarkable life. However it was in 1982 when Johnson’s greatest invention would be discovered when carrying out an experiment for a heat pump.

Lonnie Johnson has provided generation Y children with hours upon hours of fun during the summer months because Johnson is the man, who invented the Super Soaker water gun, released in 1989 and became the top selling toy in the states 1991-1992.

The water guns are still popular today and are still the best guns to use in a water fight. Lonnie has a number of his own companies including, Johnson Research and Development and they still continue to release innovative toys and also work with NASA.

At Present two of Lonnie’s companies are focussing on the development of Film batteries, these will be a new generation of rechargeable battery technology which has better abilities than that of the current Li-ion.

Also the companies working on Thermo-Electrochemical Convertor System (JTEC) which has applications in solar power plants and ocean thermal power generation, and is listed in Popular Mechanics as one of the top 10 inventions of 2008.