Well, since NASA can't launch these to the vacuum of space may as well dump it on the vacuum in Washington.

Well, at least NASA will be showing off that there are those in its mammoth bureaucracy that have the INTENT to restart manned space exploration.

As the history of Apollo show, generating a popular 'buzz' is the first and a most important step in generating enough support developing real hardware and flying real missions. So a good show by JPL's new space buggy (although, from the look of it, 'Space Crawler' is closer) might do some good.

Anyone know if Robonaut will be included?

see this is the way to show people NASA...not a extra fly over...show the future not the past!

Robonaut isn't going.

Bowing is okay--as long as you do it to the crowd. It's not a royal reception.

The placement in the parade is also critical - you gotta be IN FRONT OF the CashWagon.
That is the big truck where they are handing out all the stuff that Barack promised in the election. Once the CashWagon goes by, people will be heading for the exits.

Why do I fear this thing locking up and needing to be towed/dragged off the street...right in front of the president's reviewing stand? Can it operate in the rain? Hope they remember to charge the batteries!!!

It will breakdown and the astronaut will slip and fall on his keister--right in front of the new President. NASA should just sent a card.

Let's see. Crabwalking. Bowing. Flag. Dismount. No, there's been a misunderstanding here. This is obviously a horse show. Is that you, Trigger? Can Roy be far behind?

"It's not a royal reception."

Tell the WH that

Looks a lot like Grumman's MoLab concept from Apollo Applications/LESA; anyone know - seriously, as opposed to snark - how much pre-existing design work from AAP/LESA is being re-worked for Constellation's lunar elements?

Could you imagine the rave reviews, if NASA built a low cost electric car, that is affordable to the average person.

This is exactly what NASA needs to be doing. We truly do need to show the government and the public the good work that is happening, and that we really are looking toward the future. We just need to be prepared to answer the inevitable questions that will come from displaying this in front of millions - such as, what'll it cost? when will it fly? what is its purpose? a ready-to-go one-pager should be available to the press at the same time.

Do 25 NASA clowns come out when it stops at the reviewing stand?

Any suggestions for the must have bumper-stickers?

@ Anthony T.

Something like: "Do The Lunar Crab Walk" or something like that with a sylised cartoon picture of the rover doing its side-step.

"Any suggestions for the must have bumper-stickers?"

Official Griffin NASA Career Hearse.

Guess How Much This Thing Cost. Guess again, but higher.

Property of Universal Studios.

Your Tax Dollars Hard at Play.

Big Toys for Big Boys.

Powered by Toyota.

Going Out of Business Sale. $50,000,000 O.B.O.

Heck, why don't they just borrow one of the Armadillos from "Armageddon"?

Bumper Sticker:

"I like Mike.....not"

Oh dear lord! Why don't we just provide a platoon of dweebs wearing white shirts and pocket protectors twirling slide rules? How can anybody think this particular demonstration is a good idea?

"Heck, why don't they just borrow one of the Armadillos from "Armageddon"? "

When you really stop and think about it, that might not be a bad idea. It would certainly be a crowd pleaser.

Or maybe they could just paint a shark toothed smile on the front of the rover.

Never has so much been on the line, for this this dog an pony show. If obama cuts out the moon portion of Constellation as he has stated he would, won't the contingent in this vehicle feel like fools as they wait on the ever growing lines at the unemployment offices?

This has to be the stupid waste of funds every seen in a Inaugural Parade. Constellation wasting funds on a rover that will never see the dust of the moon that orbits the Earth. This is the open ended fund whatever Jeff Handley thinks is good for JSC.

They might as well show the active spring MSCF is developing for Ares 1 as a gymnastic device.

Given LRO is being built by a SMD center and all instruments are being built at SMD centers, JSC Planetary Science is helping no question about it. Any SMD scientist engineer would not be seen near such a rovercraft. You might as well put Lowrider Hydraulics on this thing and they would function beter. LOL get some hot looking chicks also...

Re.: Editor's update on 12/29:

This misunderstanding might be seen as symptomatic of the fact that NASA rarely if ever speaks with one voice. The various Centres and project teams tend to have their own agendas and will go on the record when they choose to do so. However, it seems incredible to me that anyone would put suggestions as to the content of NASA's participation in the Inaugural Parade on the record without first clearing it with HQ.

Sometimes, I suspect that Dr. Griffin must despair of keeping this bunch in line and 'on message'.

Does anyone have a good link to read more about the state of this pressurized rover?

The placement in the parade is also critical - you gotta be IN FRONT OF the CashWagon.

For Placement:
Please consult with:
White House Chief performance officer. Nancy Killefer, a professional efficiency expert.

She is charged with scouring the federal budget to eliminate programs that don't work and improve those that do.

Obama called her appointment "among the most important that I will make."

I know it sounds hokey, but I think it has great potential to excite and spark interest in our space program again, when millions will be watching. Folks are always complaining about how to "promote" NASA and our vision - well now we're trying to do it and all you have are critics. What hypocrites! This hardware is built and IS a concept under consideration for LSS... so why NOT get some political mileage out of it and let the people who've worked it have an opportunity to show off?

I watched it yesterday (before the all-hands), and it was pretty darn cool. (I also enjoyed the fly-over, by the way, last year - THAT got the team pumped up and I think (overall) was a great PAO event, too).

Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

What hypocrites! This hardware is built and IS a concept under consideration for LSS... so why NOT get some political mileage out of it and let the people who've worked it have an opportunity to show off?

Because your inbreed concept is full of yourself opinion and has wasted public funds for something that is not going to happen for the in the future. The Hardware will end up the pink elephant farm.

so why not excite the public and have a low rider activity who has the best control system and hydraulics and penumatics to cover ground with. Mount the winners on the hardware and have a race to see who does not break.

Do it in Galveston and attract Houston area folks for a big party.

Instead you look like idiots burning funds for no purpose other then to fund JSC.

Get the picture and stop playing I'm the one and only.

To 9+yr JSC (CS) employee:

I don't think the problem is that JSC is trying to drum up interest in what NASA does. I think it is that JSC came up with this idea before anybody looked at the inaugural parade rules, & now NASA has to scramble to put together something that does follow the rules.

We have a functioning rover analogue and no mock-up for the lander.

I like it though, I want one.

Will it actually make the flight to the moon? Who can say right now. Obama might see it and wonder why he's hearing all this mess about launch vehicles and decide that NASA is truly putting the cart before the horse. As always now, the press plays it as NASA's idea to go back to the moon.

This is a joke! It is frivolous spending on things like a mock-up of a lunar Winnebago that Obama's administration should be targeting. You don't even have a launch vehicle, NASA, why are you putting the cart two decades ahead of the horse? I'm betting this thing will break down on the parade route.

then the Snoopy Astronaut from the Macys Parade float over.

I hope this prototype is reliable! If this thing breaks down...I can imagine the headlines...

Haven't they noticed the ax the press has to grind? When there is a scrub or the shuttle lands at Edwards...the press loves to deliver the price tag for such things with a hearty, implied "tsk, tsk".

Heck, even if it doesn't break down or get stuck going over a horse patty, the press may gang up on NASA's budget in these tough times. "NASA's new $50 Million Rover makes its way down Pennsylvania Ave. as 10,000 children go to bed every night here in DC and get up to go to underfunded and run down schools...", said Joe the TV Anchor

I hope they though this through...we know how media savvy NASA is. Then again, who knows!

Isn't obvious that this will be seen as a craven attempt to curry budget favors?

The late night comics will no doubt get some mileage out of using it as a lead-in for a joke about Washingon D.C. being like an airless moon or a planet were, if your lucky, only ancient microbes may be found.

Other ideas could be a J2X mockup towed on a trailer with some fake dry ice smoke occasionally puffing from it, or a replica Mars Science Lander scooting around and drilling holes in the pavement.

This is embarassing. I don't think it'll result in the kind of response NASA wants (and needs). More likely it'll provide material for Leno, Letterman, SNL, etc.

"Well we'll always have poor children going to bed hungry no matter what."

It doesn't matter; that's not his point.

The important thing is that the press loves to take a dump on NASA any chance they get, for anything they can find, so this is pretty risky.

If the Inaugural parade is too risky for NASA, boy will they have a problem with the lunar surface.

I heard that:

This was not a NASA-generated idea, it was an idea from the administration.

This is the only entity that will be allowed to stop in front of the box.

The rover will be at the very end of the parade.

NASA non-JSC person, that is a very fun unsubstantiated rumor. If that's the case that makes this a bit exciting actually!

We'll find out soon enough.

Fair enough. I would like NASA to get more press. Good press.

They ought to be going out of their way to engage the public.

That's what this is. Instant win.

I just hope they don't have "astronauts" in the suits hanging on the side. That looks really weird.

I know what it's for and it's a great idea, but it's not very aesthetic at a parade...

Or is that just me?

Just the kind of stunt we don't need from JCS or NASA HQ. I mean come on - where's the decorum?

This would be completely mortifying. Please, please don't do it. I have to agree with Flash, Savior of the Universe on this one-it's an inbred concept.

For more information on the vehicle, go to www.nasa.gov and search on chariot. There should be both images and video available there. You can also see video on youtube. Search chariot and nasa. You might actually be impressed.

@Bill Dale:

But Brain, where are we going to find 24 NASA clowns at this hour!?

Pinky

"the ever popular 'crab walk'"?

Jesh, "an inbred concept" indeed. I was driving RT forklifts that did this 30 years ago. True it didn't have a NASA meatball just a good old "US Army".

From the videos online this thing is a lot less capable but probably cost multi-millions to develop. Those JPLers need to get out more.

Better weld a tow bar on the front of that thing.

Just in case.

Keith,

Be sure to press them on how much that thing actually cost the taxpayers.

NASA seems very reluctant to release the number.

I could accept this rover costing a lot. It's not the crab-walk. That can't be too expensive. But the fact that it's a pressurized rover that'll work, reliably, on the dity, radiation-bathed Moon.

If you're out in the field, and it breaks down, you're boned. If you can't get back into the socket, and there's no airlock, you're boned. You can't go cheap on something like that.

Besides, even all the parts get expensive. Like the CPU in the Mars Recon orbiter. It's a special IBM 750 called the RAD 750. Just like the IBM 750 in my Gamecube or my old iBook, except it'll survive years in cold vacuum, bathed in radiation. Oh, and it costs a hundred thousand dollars.

The Rover is at the END of the donkey kong show for his holiness? WOW, that is very telling, perhaps lean budgets for NASA are next.

Was this thing designed at GM by the Hummer design team? Built bulky and heavy so it can operate on Earth, never mind that we don't have a rocket to take it to space. This "rover" is just a PR toy from the JSC boys. Stop wasting money and let's do SCIENCE!