Taking exploration to new heights and depths.

Safe inside their earthbound labs, NASA scientists used a remote-controlled robot to analyze rocks on Mars. Much closer to home, long-range robots are unlocking the mysteries of another vast, unexplored region--the depths of Earth's oceans. According to Louis Whitcomb, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., "This is the golden age for robotic exploration vehicles. They're finally gaining credibility as an effective method of conducting research in inhospitable environments--both on Mars and at the bottom of the sea."

Some scientists argue that remote-controlled machines never will collect scientific knowledge as well as a human explorer could. However, Whitcomb indicates that robots can do many important research tasks without risking human lives and without the need to carry costly and cumbersome life-support equipment. "Robots have been most successful in tasks that are dirty, dull, or dangerous."

He has been working on systems that enable undersea robots to make visual records, create maps, and pick up materials at depths far below those were human scuba divers and most submarines can survive. For the rare robot that can descend up to 20,000 feet, research opportunities about. "We know more about the moon than we do about the floor of our own oceans."

One of the few machines capable of such dives is Jason, a 2,200-pound robot about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, developed and operated by the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic...