 From outside it looks like a standard van, even the small pie-shaped antenna and cameras on its roof are easy to miss. But inside is specially designed equipment that revolutionizes mapping and greatly enhances management and maintenance of the nation's highways. Using satellite positioning signals, researchers from NASA sent it for the commercial development space in Ohio are producing high-accurate up-to-date maps, simply by driving the space. Maintaining contact with navigational satellites makes it possible to calculate exactly where the van is at all times. And if the location of the van is known, so is the position of the road it's on. Never before has mapping been so easy or precise. Not only is the information accurate and current. It's also in digital form, meaning it can be processed with computers. This is of tremendous value to government agencies responsible for managing highways. Decisions such as the best route for hazardous cargo can be made far more quickly and reliably. Until now, building an electronic database to support decision-making like this required digitizing existing paper maps, an expensive, time-consuming, imprecise process. And often the maps worked from were over 20 years old. Another major benefit of the mobile mapping system is data that can be obtained about highway features. Project personnel record this information using a touch screen and standard keyboard. At the same time, digital stereo cameras capture the position and condition of overpasses, signs, utility poles, guardrails, potholes, and any other features useful to highway planners. Project manager Phillip Johnson. If you have all this information in a digital form and you know that you have a budget of so many dollars, then you can look at the roads that are in the worst condition. You'll know exactly where these sections are that need repair, and then from that you can determine how to allocate your money so that you get the most benefit from it. Technology can also be transferred to trains for new ways, boats for waterways, or aircraft for larger geographic features. The system could even be part of future rovers mapping the surface of the moon on Mars. Another application is the mapping and documentation of archeological sites, including Anasazi Indian Ruins in the southwestern United States. We could take our system and drive to one of these ruins, take some images of it, and not only would we have its position, we'd have a visual record of it that would be very valuable in the future. The mobile mapping system using signals from space to obtain valuable information about Earth today and other planets in the future.