When responding to a natural disaster, lives are on the line and every second counts. Emergency rescuers often face the challenges of assessing vast swaths of destruction and chaos with minimal real-time intelligence to guide them. Searching for survivors in rising floodwaters or the chaotic ruins of an earthquake takes days, as workers must assess which roads and bridges are accessible and attempt to navigate through hazardous, unknown environments. The Aerospace Corporation aims to give rescue crews intelligent eyes in the sky. A team of engineers and scientists are designing unmanned aerial drones that can fly into damaged areas, visually identify survivors and relay that data back to first responders.

As Hurricane Harvey ripped through Texas and neighboring gulf states in August 2017, leaving a record-breaking 30 million gallons of quickly-dirtied water in its wake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, more commonly known as FEMA, moved into position. Among the personnel from federal agencies as varied as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Coast Guard were numerous Urban Search and Rescue teams--experts in finding people in the midst of a large-scale crisis, whether they're stranded on a roof, or trapped deep beneath the rubble. They're equipped with listening devices, heat detection equipment, and, most importantly, some loyal sniffers. "We use the dogs [as] locating tools," says Scott Mateyaschuk of the New York Police Department's K9 unit. "The dogs will locate live human scent under structural collapse."