R & D & Rovers: Back to the Moon and Mars

"Weird New NASA Rovers Really Get Around"
Wired Science (May 18, 2009)

"At some point on their five-year journey, Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have both gotten their feet stuck in the soil, and NASA is taking notes for the design of the next generation of rovers.

"In 2005, Opportunity spent five weeks spinning her wheels in a dune later dubbed 'Purgatory.' Last week, Spirit sank into a sandpit scientists are calling 'Troy,' and could stay there for weeks — or forever.

"But rovers of the future may have an easier time of it. NASA scientists are building an army of prototypes with new and ever weirder ways to rove...."

About a half-dozen photos go with this article. It's a pretty good overview of 'next-generation' surface vehicles for the Moon and Mars.

They're not all like Lemur (shown in the thumbnail), but quite a few of them have a vaguely insectoid appearance. The one that's probably going to get used first, Mars Science Laboratory, is more conventional: a WALL-E-esque scaled-up version of the existing Mars rovers.