Spy Tech and Mars Exploration

NASA's Mars rovers are an incredibly successful duo, but they've covered relatively little territory. Since Mars has an atmosphere that would support aircraft, scientists and engineers have been working for decades to find a way to fold a small aircraft into the payload area of a rocket, send it to Mars, deploy the aircraft, and fly over thousands of square miles of Martian terrain.

Back on Earth, the U. S. intelligence community has been looking for a small aircraft that could be quickly deployed to a trouble spot to give the president an early sense of what was happening. In a project called "Rapid Eye," the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency intends to enlist help from NASA engineers working on Mars aircraft concepts to help guide development of just such an aircraft.

Spy satellites helped avoid World War III by telling the president of the United States exactly what the Soviets had and where it was located at critical points. That tradition seems to be continuing with Rapid Eye.