Nasa unveils six-wheeled Mars rover complete with full laboratory & life support sys!

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Nasa unveils six-wheeled Mars rover complete with full laboratory & life support sys!

Nasa unveils six-wheeled Mars rover complete with full laboratory and life support systems

Sci-fi vision of future looks nothing like the robots that have so far travelled to the red planet

The Parker Brothers concept of a new Nasa Mars Rover NASA

Nasa has unveiled a new Mars rover concept vehicle designed to function "as both a working vehicle and laboratory" for the next generation of space explorers.

The 8.5-metre vehicle would not look out of place in a science-fiction film. It features six huge wheels to allow it to travel over craters, dunes and rocks, a sloping front reminiscent of the Nolan-era Batmobile and solar panels to power everything.

"It features life support systems, navigation and communication systems, and design and materials that relate to conditions and resources on Mars," Nasa said.

Created by Parker Brothers Concepts, the rover — which looks nothing like the actual vehicles that have trundled over Mars' surface, 34 million miles away — will promote Nasa's "summer of Mars" to teach young people about its efforts to land humans on Earth's neighbouring world.

The concept vehicle will never cruise the dunes of Mars but Nasa believes "one or more of its elements could make its way into a rover astronauts will drive on the red planet".

The space agency's next robotic rover is due to touch down in 2020, to "search for signs of past microbial life and collect core samples for a potentially future return to Earth".

 

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Nasa should get rid of International Space Station as soon as possible and go to Mars

We simple 'cannot afford' the cost of the floating laboratory, the moonwalker said

Nasa needs to retire the International Space Station as soon as possible, according to Buzz Aldrin.


The US can't afford to keep running the floating laboratory and should instead spend the money on going to Mars, the moonwalker said.

"We must retire the ISS as soon as possible," Mr Aldrin told a presentation at the Human to Mars conference. "We simply cannot afford $3.5 billion a year of that cost."

The ISS is funded until 2024, and the space agencies who support it hope to raise another $100 billion to keep it going until 2028. Nasa says that keeping the ISS around is a key part of its "Journey to Mars" project, which hopes to get humans to the planet by the 2030s.

In place of the space station, private companies should be encouraged to launch low Earth orbit (LEO) projects, that could float around above us. Eventually, those will help with the mission to Mars – serving as launchpads.

That would play into Mr Aldrin's plans to colonise Mars, which revolves around his plans for "cyclers". Those are spacecraft that move between Earth and Mars continually, like buses, carrying people and cargo between the two places.

Eventually he hopes they can be used to put settlers on the planet – who will live there forever, not just go on a short trip like Mr Aldrin did to the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission.

"Let's be certain that we've developed a sustainable plan to stay on Mars," he said. "No flags and footprints this time."