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21st-Century Update of Ancient Tech Could Help Astronauts Explore Mars

by Terrence O'Brien on March 21, 2010 at 11:01 AM

When we finally do put humans on Mars, they'll face a major challenge: navigation. When we first poke around on the Moon, the astronauts never let the lander leave their sight. Considering the time and cost of a manned mission to Mars, however, our explorers will be expected to push further out from the landing zone. But, due to the Red Planet's lack of a strong magnetosphere, a compass would be useless, and building a functional network of GPS satellites is simply not feasible.

Richard Speck and his company Micro-Space have dreamed up a solution, though, that works on the centuries-old principles of the sextant. The concept uses four cameras mounted on the astronaut's helmet to track stars, the sun and other celestial bodies to determine location and bearing, a graphical representation of which is then projected on a heads-up display inside the helmet. The one issue with the system is that it would only be accurate to within one-quarter of a mile. Still, that's much better than wandering aimlessly.

Speck is also exploring earthly uses for the system. It could be used on the battlefield, for instance, in the event that an enemy managed to scramble or jam GPS signals. [From: PopSci]

Tags: exploration, mars, nasa, navigation, RichardSpeck, sextant, space, top

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