At an elevation of around 6,000 feet near Mount Hood, located roughly 70 miles east of Portland, an interdisciplinary team comprising members from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Texas A&M University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Oregon State University, Temple University, and NASA, embarked on a field mission. The group of engineers, cognitive scientists, geoscientists, and planetary scientists was there to conduct field tests with a four-legged robot named Spirit, part of the Legged Autonomous Surface Science in Analog Environments (LASSIE) Project.