High profile trips by billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have more people thinking about the future of space tourism. There's a long way to go before that's common, but one destination for would-be space explorers is Mars. And right now, NASA scientists are working on robots to help explore more of the planet first. Ali Agha, a principal investigator and research technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is testing a fleet of robots, including the Boston Dynamics one known as Spot, by sending them into caves in Northern California. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Though NASA's Perseverance rover is on the Mars surface looking for signs of ancient life, the US space agency believes that robots looking in caves may help the US space agency find life outside this planet. As such, it is working with a number of contractors, including Boston Dynamics, on a project known as BRAILLE (Biologic and Resource Analog Investigations in Low Light Environments), exploring Mars-like caves on Earth in hopes that one day they will be used for future missions. Fully autonomous robots, like Boston Dynamics' Spot, could help explore these caves, which are believed to be hundreds of feet long and make communicating with Earth difficult, if not impossible. NASA is training robots like Boston Dynamics' Spot (pictured) to help traverse caves on Earth for future missions to Mars It is part of NASA's BRAILLE (Biologic and Resource Analog Investigations in Low Light Environments) project Fully autonomous robots could help explore Martian caves, believed to be hundreds of feet long. On Earth, NASA has incorporated its autonomy and artificial intelligence system, NeBula, into Spot, to help it explore the moon, Mars and other places in the solar system. 'Future potential human exploration missions can benefit from robots in many different ways,' Ali Agha, the project's research lead, told CBS News. 'Particularly, robots can be sent in precursor missions to provide more information about the destination before humans land on those destinations.

A team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is testing a 3D-printed Transformer-like new robot, Shapeshifter, which is capable of morphing into multiple configurations. And it is stated that a similar design could one day be leveraged to explore Saturn's moon Titan. Saturn's moon Titan is one of the most potential targets on any planetary scientist's list for exploration. But any mission to Titan will have to deal with an environment unlike any other – frigid temperatures, cryovolcanoes, caves, and lakes, seas, and rain of liquid hydrocarbons. However, the latest concept could encompass 12 mini robots – cobots (Collaborative Robots) – that can fly or swim, exploring caves and oceans and will go where other robots haven't been able to explore.

A team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is testing a 3D-printed Transformer-like new robot, Shapeshifter, which is capable of morphing into multiple configurations. And it is stated that a similar design could one day be leveraged to explore Saturn's moon Titan. Saturn's moon Titan is one of the most potential targets on any planetary scientist's list for exploration. But any mission to Titan will have to deal with an environment unlike any other – frigid temperatures, cryovolcanoes, caves, and lakes, seas, and rain of liquid hydrocarbons. However, the latest concept could encompass 12 mini robots – cobots (Collaborative Robots) – that can fly or swim, exploring caves and oceans and will go where other robots haven't been able to explore.