NASA engineers have joined the effort to develop fully autonomous cars that will not only benefit drivers on Earth, but also improve the technology used for robotic vehicles surveying the surface of the moon, Mars and other bodies in the solar system.

As part of the  Central Florida Automated Vehicle Partnership, NASA may offer its 15,000-foot-long (4,600 meter) and 300-foot-wide (100 m) Shuttle Landing Facility runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for controlled testing of driverless cars, and the partnership can also benefit NASA by developing technology useful for space missions, agency officials said in a statement. Kennedy Space Center also has electric-car-charging stations around its campus.