It revived its fortunes by retargeting itself as a productivity tool for warehouses, security teams at airports and other specialized locations where on-the-job effectiveness did require the ability to glide quietly along a smooth surface at 12 m.p.h.
"If anybody has been harboring doubts about the status of U.S. leadership in space, well, there's a one-ton, automobile-size piece of American ingenuity, and it's sitting on the surface of Mars right now, " said White House science adviser John P.