When Humanity Leaves This Planet, We'll Need this 6WD ROVO To Colonize Our New Homes

With that in mind, we can safely play on the visionary realm with our most outstanding achievement as a species: the wheel. One CGI mastermind from Florida, Lee Rosario, took it upon himself to portray a future in which homo sapiens flee an unhabitable Earth and colonize Mars. The fantasy is called Mission Exodus – go figure! – and it centered around a Martian-based colony that is now taking shape.

It all starts with one tiny outpost on the Red Planet and one car – let’s call it that because it has wheels, a cockpit, and a driver inside. Its official name is ROVO – the Remote Operations Vehicle and Observatory – which sums up the purpose and use of this six-wheeled oddity.

Why oddity? Apart from its looks and operational environment, the ROVO proposes several technological solutions that seem to be carved out of a well-documented Sci-Fi movie. Let’s start with propulsion: electric all-wheel drive with independent motors built into each wheel. Come to think of it, that’s a clever idea. What’s even more out of this world is the power source: intended to be used on Mars, the car can’t reliably use solar, wind, or fossil fuel generators.

Therefore, the designer came up with the tiniest power source there is - the atom. A nuclear reactor – reduced to fit inside the body of the single-seater – provides enough electricity to last for extended periods without running low. In the pixels tamer’s concept, engineers with Lockheed Martin, Jeep, and Tesla backgrounds work together to create the surreal vehicle.

Triple shock-absorbing coil-over struts keep the six wheels firmly rooted in the rough, abrasive Martian soil. In contrast, the fourth pair of smaller wheels activates upon contact during high angles of approach or steep climbs. Titanium and carbon mesh body panels protect the ROVO from severe Martian dust storms and keep the car’s weight to a minimum.

The reclined seating position is achievable thanks to a driving system that eliminates the steering wheel and the classic instruments panel and monitors. The driver – himself a highly enhanced being filled with high tech – connects to the car via a network of cerebral and optical implants. An augmented reality Head-Up Display serves as the driver-car interface. The drivers need only to look where they want to go and “think” the car towards its destination.

To stop the Mars-crawling ROVO, three redundant braking pads sit on the inner top side of the rims, applying force on the wheel as needed (and cleaning it from debris simultaneously). The overall specs are not provided, but the designer does tell us the size of this species-saving machine. 20.5 feet in length (nearly six meters) and 8.2 feet wide (2.5 meters), with a weight of 2,500 lbs. (1.1 tons).

ROVO is an exploration vehicle and one that ventures into the most unhospitable, unfriendly, and unpredictable environments known to humankind – another planet. Although no (known) foes or enemies exist on the Red Planet, the investigative missions are not without dangers. ROVO comes equipped with a drone, as unique as the car itself.

Able to fly for 200 miles without a charge and climb as high as 10,000 feet (3.000 meters), the drone can collect various data while simultaneously providing a bigger picture of the car’s surroundings.

The car design is an exciting imagination exercise, but, like everything else around us, if somebody can imagine something, then that something can be built.