  Results from the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) North and South show a large
percentage of high-redshift galaxies whose appearance falls outside traditional
classification systems. The nature of these objects is poorly understood, but
sub-mm observations indicate that at least some of these systems are heavily
obscured (Sanders 2000). This raises the intriguing possibility that a
physically meaningful classification system for high-redshift galaxies might be
more easily devised at rest-frame infrared wavelengths, rather than in the
optical regime. Practical realization of this idea will become possible with
the advent of the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). In order to explore
the capability of NGST for undertaking such science, we present NASA-IRTF and
SCUBA observations of NGC 922, a chaotic system in our local Universe which
bears a striking resemblance to objects such as HDF 2-86 (z=0.749) in the HDF
North. If objects such as NGC 922 are common at high-redshifts, then this
galaxy may serve as a local morphological `Rosetta stone' bridging low and
high-redshift populations. In this paper we demonstrate that quantitative
measures of galactic structure are recoverable in the rest-frame infrared for
NGC 922 seen at high redshifts using NGST, by simulating the appearance of this
galaxy at redshifts z=0.7 and z=1.2 in rest-frame K'. Our results suggest that
the capability of efficiently exploring the rest-wavelength IR morphology of
high-z galaxies should probably be a key factor in deciding the final choice of
instruments for the NGST.
