Desert RATS Test Robotic Rover Moffett Field CA (SPX) Sep 30,
2005 Until earlier this year, when President Bush announced an
ambitious blueprint for space exploration, NASA had no plans to
send humans back to the moon, or to Mars. But that didn't stop
an intrepid group of scientists, based at NASA's Johnson Space
Center in Houston, Texas, from investigating technologies that
would be needed for such a mission. Every year for nearly a
decade, they have trekked out to remote desert locations to
conduct research on equipment and procedures that might some day
be used by off-world explorers. The skunkworks project, known as
Desert RATS (Research and Technology Studies), has just
completed its eighth field season, on a barren cattle ranch near
the rim of Meteor Crater, some 40 miles outside Flagstaff,
Arizona. It's hard to find places on Earth that simulate Martian
conditions. But the Arizona high desert comes close enough for
the experiments the Desert RATS team conducted during the first
two weeks of September.