We don't give NASA enough credit for what they do. Using less computer capabilities than are in most appliances these days they've been able to send craft to the farthest reaches of the solar system and do something useful in the process. Like Galileo, which was sent out in 1989 and has been orbiting Jupiter since 1996. Heck, most cars don't last that long. Even though winter driving in New Hampshire can be tough, it's nothing like hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour based on communications with flight engineers at 160 bits per second.

Try your own homemade NASA experiment: call a friend with a cell phone and try to drive their car via remote control commands. You should do this in an empty parking lot, or better yet a large field in Nebraska. They can only adjust the steering wheel, brakes, and gas based on your instructions (left 45 degrees, stop, start, maintain 5mph, etc..) and conversely they must communicate back what they see (speed, obstacles, cops). Better yet, use text messaging.

Hmm, maybe that's not such a good idea. How about calling the same friend (not in their car) and have them draw a picture using a canned set of instructions. Like turtle draw over the phone.

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