GovernmentExecutive.com

The folks at NASA are very proud of their Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer, an underwater robot that recently successfully navigated the depths of Mexico's huge Sistema Zacaton sinkhole. That, agency officials say, was good practice for a future mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, which is thought to be home to an ocean.

But NASA's description of the robot's strengths is straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey: "The Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer," the space agency says, "is a 3,300-pound, computerized, underwater vehicle that makes its own decisions ... it decides where to swim, which samples to collect and how to get home."