Tech companies find a market in Mars

NASA cultivates start-ups, partners, like Google, for space missions.

As the science of space exploration expands, missions are becoming significantly more sophisticated. The institute is looking at the feasibility of robotic space flights to the tiny Mars moon of Phobos. The missions, if they take place, won't begin until 2011. The goal is to determine whether the 13-mile-long, potato-shaped moon has resources such as hydrogen to fuel future space travel.