Mars Sample Return

Dilandu said:
We aren't sure when exactly Martian manned missions would starts, and anyway I suspect that Mars orbital station would be quite useful anyway. It's MUCH easier and cheaper to send humans to Low Martian Orbit than on Mars surface; a
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nope, actually easier to go straight to the surface when that is end point. And safer. No need to add a node.

Dilandu said:
orbiting Martian station would allow real-time control of Mars probes and rovers, making the automatic missions much more efficient.

P.S. Actually, it may be quite a good idea to launch a server station with pathfinding AI running to control Martian rovers in real time. Current way of controlling rovers from Earth - with very long signal transmission and even longer path analysis - is highly inefficient. If we give rover controls to AI station on Martian orbit (with a set of relay sattelites around Mars), we could simplify the situation by just sending AI the generic orders "move the rover ten miles west to the A7543/b crater", leaving the pathfinding to AI.
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no, it doesn't do anything for probes and better to put the AI on the rovers
 
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Justo Miranda said:
No more free money for stupid projects and endless missions that go through Venus to Saturn, adding several years to the budget.

Welcome to reality.
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What are you talking about? What does that have to do with a robotic laboratory vs robotically returning samples?
 
Justo Miranda said:
The difference is in the opinion of the taxpayers, science without parasites.
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What does that mean? That sentence structure indicates two different topics: opinion of the taxpayers of what I don't and science without parasites.
And what parasites?
What are you trying to convey?
 
Too much money is being spent on answering a philosophical question and as long as there are billions of dollars in budgets, scientists will continue to look for those damn bacteria under the rocks: "they must be nearby, we just need one billion more and another fifty years". In the meantime, we continue to use propulsion systems developed by the Nazis. Mars is full of holes, tomorrow something like the one that fell in Hellas could reach us... And only the Martian bacteria would be left to start over. We need a new nuclear-powered electromagnetic propulsion system that is powerful enough to deflect an asteroid or shorten the flight time of exploration probes.

How long are they going to keep throwing money at poorly planned parasite projects? this looks like the war in Afghanistan and will possibly end the same.

P-A-R-A-S-I-T-E-S
 

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publiusr said:
I’d rather had that as the Iraq War.
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wrong trade off and that is why you are not in charge. If there was no Iran war, NASA still would not get that money. There are no trades like that, even in Alt-history. Just like F-35 money would not go to NASA.

And it would be better to flush the 30 billion than use it on the Boeing proposal. That would set back NASA.
 
Byeman said:
wrong trade off and that is why you are not in charge. If there was no Iran war, NASA still would not get that money. There are no trades like that, even in Alt-history. Just like F-35 money would not go to NASA.

And it would be better to flush the 30 billion than use it on the Boeing proposal. That would set back NASA.
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Those in charge now say that a dollar that doesn't serve to make America bigger, richer, or safer won't be spent.

No more nonsense about superstrings, dark energy and dark matter that are nothing more than theories invented to fit other even more stupid theories and the whole set of nonsense cannot be considered science because it cannot be verified experimentally.

No more fusion experiments that have achieved nothing in 79 years and if the Higgs Boson does not serve to cure diseases, or to protect astronauts from cosmic rays, or to propel spaceships, or to generate energy, or to detect terrorists, or to lower taxes... it will be better to return it to Higgs to keep it in a drawer.
 
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Dilandu said:
I doubt it pretty seriously. The energy - and cooling - requirements of running AI-grade high-efficiency processor are significant. Space-based solar array could handle it. Radioisotopic generator? Doubt that.
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it is only AI for driving. Other than imagery, there is little other data available to process.
 
Justo Miranda said:
Those in charge now say that a dollar that doesn't serve to make America bigger, richer, or safer won't be spent.

No more nonsense about superstrings, dark energy and dark matter that are nothing more than theories invented to fit other even more stupid theories and the whole set of nonsense cannot be considered science because it cannot be verified experimentally.

No more fusion experiments that have achieved nothing in 79 years and if the Higgs Boson does not serve to cure diseases, or to protect astronauts from cosmic rays, or to propel spaceships, or to generate energy, or to detect terrorists, or to lower taxes... it will be better to return it to Higgs to keep it in a drawer.
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so you don't believe pure science research
 
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Flyaway said:
Article on the House and Senate marks for Mars Sample Return:

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/mars-sample-return-gets-a-lifeline-from-house-appropriators/
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I like that we have folks in Congress who aren't afraid of spending money on space.

I have said before that it was NewSpace grousing that attracted political cuts from the current administration. Many hoped money would open up by killing projects that Congress liked. Instead, science took a worse hit.

The best thing the science community can do is to zip up their smart mouth instead of trying to get popular programs killed to raid their budgets--that will always backfire in the worst way.
 
publiusr said:
I have said before that it was NewSpace grousing that attracted political cuts from the current administration.
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unsubstantiated. you really don't know what is going on. New Space had nothing to do with it. it was the OMB on its own.
 
publiusr said:
The best thing the science community can do is to zip up their smart mouth instead of trying to get popular programs killed to raid their budgets--that will always backfire in the worst way.
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they did nothing of the sort.
 
What does seem clear after this week is that, despite a line in the president's budget request for fiscal year 2026 calling for the cancellation of NASA's Mars Sample Return mission, Duffy is open to negotiating with Congress about the best path forward. But he's not ready to talk about it yet. However, based upon discussions with several sources, there appear to be three potential paths that NASA is considering:

  1. Commercial: Of the two options presented in January 2025, NASA could follow the second one, in which the agency would "capitalize on using new commercial capabilities to deliver the lander payload to the surface of Mars." My sources indicate the first option, to leverage "previously flown" technology, is dead. Basically, there would be a commercial partnership, similar to COTS, in which NASA bought a sample return service designed and offered by one or a team of private companies.
  2. Prize: NASA could offer a prize—say $3 billion to the first company and $1 billion to a second company—for delivering something like 1 kg of Mars rocks and soil back to Earth. NASA has used prizes very sparingly in the past, but this option could appeal to the Trump administration as it would require very little funding up front.
  3. Humans: Duffy could say something like, "We are not sending a robot to pick up rocks on Mars when we plan to land humans there in a decade." This would effectively cancel any robotic plan with the hope that a human mission will materialize in the not-too-distant future.
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https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/...-so-where-does-that-leave-mars-sample-return/
If I had to bet, it would surprise me if they didn’t go for option 2, as I could see that appealing to the current administration more than the other two.
 
He said he would examine alternative proposals submitted to NASA in 2024 for MSR. At the end of the Biden administration, NASA said it would continue studying two approaches: one based on a concept by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and another using unspecified commercial landers.

“We’re going to have to take a look at it and see which of those, if any of them, are economical and can be achieved in a reasonable time period,” Isaacman said. “If not, we have to reformulate and think what is an alternative approach to it.”

He said he remains interested in returning the samples being cached by the Perseverance rover to Earth, some of which could contain evidence of past Martian life.

“Am I interested in getting those samples back? You bet,” he said when asked about the status of MSR during a Feb. 13 news conference after the Crew-12 launch. “This is an opportunity for what could be the most consequential discovery in human history.”
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https://spacenews.com/nasa-work-on-...ing-responses-to-white-house-executive-order/
 
Senate committee advances NASA authorization bill that changes Artemis and extends ISS

The Senate bill directs the formal termination of the earlier MSR program and calls for the creation of a new MSR effort. The new plan would have a total cost cap of $8 billion, although it was not clear if that included funds spent on the earlier MSR program. It would also require use of “existing flight-proven technologies” and limit international cooperation to contributions that do not “unduly increase” the cost and risk of the program.

The bill directs NASA to submit a plan for carrying out that revised MSR program, including cost and schedule estimates, within 120 days of enactment. It also states that the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, funded in last year’s budget reconciliation bill, should remain separate from this revised MSR effort.
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