Originally published June 25 2005
Cyborg computer system for Mars exploration tested in Spain
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The BBC reports that software programmed to look for life on Mars, and designed to provide real-time information to the astronaut wearing the system, is being tested at the red sandstone beds in Spain, a site resembling the Mars landing point of NASA's rover Opportunity.
The system, to be worn by an astronaut, underwent a trial at red sandstone beds in Spain with similarities to Meridiani Planum, being explored by the rover.
Software picks out interesting features and highlights them in real-time in a visor on one eye or a tablet display.
The cyborg astrobiologist consists of a 667MHz wearable computer, a tablet display with stylus or visor, a colour video camera and tripod.
It would provide "augmented reality", allowing astronauts on future Mars missions to narrow down their search for targets relevant to life processes on the Red Planet.
Riba de Santiuste Intelligent software picks out interesting features in the landscape Part of the reason the scientists chose this site was because in some respects it resembled Meridiani.
"We don't know for a fact that biology is involved in creating the bleached zones in Riba de Santiuste.
But we know that in other red beds around the world, the bleached zones are caused by biological processes," Dr McGuire told the BBC News website.
It even spotted small, dark red concretions or nodules in the rocky beds, similar to the "popcorn" found by Opportunity at Meridiani Planum.
These were at the limits of the perception capabilities of the even human geologists.
Images obtained with the video camera are processed by the computer to generate a map of "uncommon" features based on three properties of the image: hue, saturation and intensity.
Patrick McGuire with the cyborg astrobiologist Wearable computers could be worn by human explorers on Mars Uncommon maps for each of the three properties are then combined to create an "interest map" of features in the landscape worthy of further investigation.
The rate of false positives, when the computer says there is something interesting but the human does not agree, was 32%.
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