NASA Tracks 2 Explorers Through Antarctica, Prepares for Life on Mars

NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Stanford University collected data from the smart wearable device as the two men walked and glided south.

Outside of the kite making use of the good winds to tow it, the two of them travel without any mechanical assistance. They also towed two 440-pound (200 kilograms) sleds carrying not only their food and equipment, but also samples of their blood, saliva, urine and faeces taken across the trip.

NASA is also testing the rover’s ability to visually estimate distances, which is often unreliable when humans are placed in unfamiliar environments.

A famous example comes from the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

While walking across the moon collecting rock samples, astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell set their sights on a distant crater, but decided to return after estimating the distance to be more than a mile.

In fact, both are only 50 feet (15.24 meters) from the crater rim.

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