Monday, October 27, 2008

What's ugly, slow, and costs more than a Bugatti Veyron?

What you see here, is the ugly, slow and extremely costly vehicle that NASA is currently testing. Of course the costly part is not the 10km/h maximum speed, the maximum mileage of 1000km, but rather its capability of surviving its occupants - not thru crash tests thou, but rather a pressurized chamber that allows astronauts to operate the vehicle without wearing those cumbersome spacesuits (also costlier than a Veyron). Dubbed Small Pressurized Rover, this marks a new step in space exploration where traditionally moon rovers are technically open tops, with astronauts driving it in their Intel Bunny Suits. This new SPR allows astronauts to 'dock' from it's back, where the backpack will fit on it, and allows the 'hatch' to open up and astronauts can 'exit' their spacesuits into the vehicle. Cool, but still short of what people in the 1980s would imagine how us in the 21st century still couldn't create something that looked like Eve from WALL-E.