NASA has just unveiled its new Mars Rover concept, and if Alfred Pennyworth and Lucious Fox were real, you would think they were the minds behind the Mars Rover concept.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover has been rolling on the rocky red surface of Mars since 2012, but with the plans of colonizing the red planet, there is a need for a ride that will take humans there.
The vehicle was the center of curiosity before NASA made the official announcement. The incredible out-of-this-world vehicle is designed to carry four astronauts to the neighbor planet. The wheeled vehicle has detachable laboratory and runs entirely on solar power with a 700-volt battery.
NASA has only created the prototype vehicle for the public education series “Summer of Mars” at the Kennedy Space Center, and it is planned to travel all across the US to inspire people to learn about space exploration. “The Mars Rover will tour select cities on the east coast this summer. Cities and dates coming soon,” the space center’s website reads. No manned missions are planned for Mars anytime soon, so the Mars Rover concept announcement shows NASA’s thoughtful plans about how the astronauts will manoeuvre on the red planet.
The Mars Rover vehicle that NASA has announced is not meant to make its way to Mars, but it is certainly not some toy project as the Kennedy Space Center announced on their website, “The Rover will become a part of the new astronaut training experience, opening fall 2017.”
Parker Brothers Concepts are specialists in creating outlandish rides for movies and TV shows. Brothers Marc and Shanon Parker are the brains behind this project as well as they built the ride from scratch starting November 2016 to April 2017. Talking about this Marc said, “Me and the guys, we averaged about 80 to 100 hours a week, each. We worked 10-, 12-, 14-hour days, seven days a week since late last year. If I thought about how many hours we put into this thing, I’d probably cry. It’s way too many.”
The design did not just have to be classy; it was supposed to follow the parameters that NASA has to meet the legal mandate to put a man on Mars by 2033. They could either create a scouting vehicle or a full research lab, everything else was left up to the designers who said, “What we actually came up with was a dual-purpose vehicle. It actually separates in the middle. The rear section is a full lab, the front area is a cockpit for going out and doing scouting. The lab section can actually disconnect … and be left on its own to do autonomous research. That way the scout vehicle can go out to do its thing without the fuel consumption and extra weight, then come back later.”
While the Mars missions remain a thing of future, fifth graders can get free admission to the “Summer of Mars
” program at the Kennedy Space Center.
