Engineers at NASA have reinvented the wheel by making a nearly invincible woven-mesh design that “remembers” its ideal shape and springs back into form.
The rough terrain of Mars is breaking the wheels of NASA’s Curiosity rover.
In response, NASA is trying to reinvent the wheel for space exploration.
Metals that can “remember” their form, called shape-memory alloys, are key to the new design.
The wheel won’t be used on the follow-on mission to Curiosity, but it could aid future Martian exploration — and vehicles on Earth.
Mars chews up our wheels and spits them out.
Take NASA’s one-ton, car-size, nuclear-powered Mars Curiosity robot: After just a year of cautious 0.09-mile-per-hour roving, small rocks began ripping large holes in its tires.
However, NASA engineers have reinvented the wheel into a form that may one day conquer Mars.
Tech: Mars destroys tires — so NASA reinvented the wheel by giving it a memory
