[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] No rocks coming from Mars

[Ted Kochanski]

All,

We were working toward a talk by a NASA Scientist on the Mars Sample Return
Mission

Unfortunately, according to today's Nature Briefing

NASA abandons Mars rock return mission
NASA is seeking fresh ideas for delivering Mars rocks collected by the
Perseverance rover to Earth. With its up to US$11 billion price tag, the
current plan is “too expensive” and its schedule is “unacceptable”, said
NASA administrator Bill Nelson. In the agency’s original vision, a
spacecraft would carry a lander and a rocket to Mars. The rocket would
launch the lander plus samples into Martian orbit, where they would meet
another spacecraft that would then return the samples to Earth.



   - NEWS
   - 15 April 2024

NASA admits plan to bring Mars rocks to Earth won’t work — and seeks fresh
ideas
The agency’s head calls the current plan for delivering samples collected
by the Perseverance rover “too expensive” and its schedule “unacceptable.”

   By
   - Sumeet Kulkarni
   <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01109-1#author-0>


   - Twitter
   <https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=NASA+admits+plan+to+bring+Mars+rocks+to+Earth+won%E2%80%99t+work+%E2%80%94+and+seeks+fresh+ideas&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fd41586-024-01109-1>

   - Facebook
   <http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fd41586-024-01109-1>

   - Email
   <?subject=NASA%20admits%20plan%20to%20bring%20Mars%20rocks%20to%20Earth%20won%E2%80%99t%20work%20%E2%80%94%20and%20seeks%20fresh%20ideas&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fd41586-024-01109-1>

[image: This animation shows NASA's Perseverance Mars rover collecting a
sample from a rock using a coring bit on the end of its robotic arm.]

NASA’s Perseverance rover collects a sample from a Martian rock using a bit
on the end of its robotic arm.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA announced today that it is abandoning its longstanding plan for
ferrying rock and soil samples from Mars to Earth
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00927-z>. Instead the agency
will seek proposals for quicker and cheaper ways to deliver the samples to
Earth.

An independent review board concluded last year that NASA’s Mars sample
return mission could cost as much as US$11 billion
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03034-1>, more than what it
cost to launch the James Webb Space Telescope
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00153-z>. In a report released
today, a separate NASA review team concluded that even if the agency spent
that much money, the dropoff of the samples on Earth would be delayed until
2040. The agency had originally sought to land the samples on Earth in the
early 2030s.

The $11 billion price tag is “too expensive,” said NASA administrator Bill
Nelson <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03485-w> at a press
briefing, and “not returning the samples until 2040 is unacceptable.”
Nelson said the agency “is committed to bringing at least some of the
samples back” and later said NASA would return “more than 30” of the 43
planned samples.
Scaling back

NASA’s Perseverance rover
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04433-6> has already collected
more than 20 rock samples from Jezero Crater, where the rover landed in
2020. Scientists think that the crater was once filled with a lake of
water, and samples from the crater and its surroundings could provide a
window into the planet’s history and, perhaps, evidence of past life on the
red planet.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01109-1


My comment follows


So it seems as if the rocks will be waiting to be analyzed until humans
arrive on Mars?

Ted
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/attachments/20240416/1f0b2eec/attachment.htm>