This is not your regular expensive toy that you would want to play around with in your own backyard. Of course, if your backyard consists of surfaces like the Mars and the Moon, then maybe you might want to give it a try. (If your backyard is indeed that bad then you will need a lot more than this!) ‘Sandstalker’ is a manned, un-pressurized vehicle, designed to transport two astronauts plus scientific equipment to destinations anywhere within a 40km radius around the main habitat. It carries a variety of different analyzing tools, such as moesbauer-spectrometer. (What is that, I have no clue)It also has drilling-devices and a device to pack up mars-samples. The vehicle is designed to assist the astronauts as much as possible during their missions, improve their abilities and give them a feeling of comfort and safety. It has the ability to move above most of the Martian “flat” surfaces, re-supplies the crew and gives them vital information about their hostile environment. It has dimensions of about 4m (length) x 3.3m (width) x 1.9m (height) at an estimated mass of 1t (including two fully equipped astronauts).

The Sandstalker can be operated by a GPS-like system and it has no built in seats. It can carry about two astronomers by a mechanism which looks like it is going to ‘bolt them in’. The energy sources are rechargeable batteries mounted on top of the vehicle, above the container. They power all the vehicles components. ‘Sandstalker’ is a 4WD plus four-wheel-steering, to insure maximized maneuverability. All ‘legs’ can be moved independently and are built up similar to a human leg. The technology is pretty cool and it might be something that you would see as a part of future NASA mission.

It basically features qualities of less weight, agility, flexibility and security as it offers a very comfortable and safe medium of transportation across new Martian surfaces. It is apparently not a prototype and more of its kind might be revamped and integrated in to future space programs. It probably is the most expensive gadget on four wheels and looks its cost too. If the future of mankind is Star Wars, then this surely is going to feature in it in some way or another. But I still do wish ‘Synthesis International’ has a better spelled feature about it. They know their technology, but language I guess is not quite up their alley.

via Synthesis