Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2013 | Page 26

parents’ Toyota Prius into a business that pushes the limits of how
fuel-efficient cars can be. Their personal best so far: 1,200 miles on
a 9-gallon tank of gas plus electricity, including normal driving such
as shopping and airport runs.
“We essentially hack the [car’s] computers to allow them to do
things that the original manufacturer didn’t intend for them to do,”
says Andrew. “It’s a video game on wheels.”

Living on Martian Time

This fall, Roger spent three months living on “Mars time,” working
night shifts in Pasadena, California, in order to help operate the
Curiosity rover’s ChemCam during the daylight of Mars’ almost
25-hour day.
“It’s been an incredible experience,” he says. “I never imagined
I would get to do this kind of work.”
Roger majored in physics at Wheaton and studied music, but his
interest in space came from a physics professor who had studied
meteorites from American moon missions.
“From there, I was not necessarily planning on a career in space, but
in doing something more ‘overtly Christian’ and humanitarian like
teaching in the Third World,” says Roger. “But it never worked out.”