No fancy jets or motors here - NASA's back to the basics. Acting on a tip from Mother Nature, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has finally designed a vehicle that can handle Mars' rocky terrain: a 20-foot-wide ball dubbed the Tumbleweed Rover. During unrelated tests in the Mojave Desert, JPL principal engineer Jack A. Jones watched an inflatable wheel come off an experimental transponder and quickly travel nearly a mile. "We had to thumb a ride on an ATV to catch it," Jones says. "We realized if we made the wheel big enough, no physical structure could stand in its way." Fueled by the winds of Mars, the rover (www.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/features/tumbleweed.html), made from a lightweight, high-strength polymer, could reach speeds of up to 30 mph, scale 25-degree inclines, and leave 3-foot-tall boulders in the dust. When the rover is launched in 2009, its video camera, subsurface radar, and magnetometer - attached to the inside of the ball by tension cords - will search for signs of life, water, and tectonic plate movement.
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