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NASA punts decision on Mars sample return to next administration

https://www.science.org/content/article/nasa-punts-decision-mars-sample-return-next-administration
18•geox•1h ago

Comments

ACCount37•1h ago
This is "news" from the beginning of 2025. The "next administration" in question is Trump administration.

MSR is still in a limbo though, which isn't too surprising - between how much of a disaster was JPL's original MSR proposal, how much of a mess NASA is right now, and how much of a battleground NASA's budget has devolved into.

delichon•48m ago
If NASA doesn't do this, there is still a very well financed private company that intends to do it, as a side effect of colonization, and is actively and credibly developing the capability. How much value is there in the state doing it first?
pohl•42m ago
Interesting, which company is that, and how reliable is their leadership at follow-through?
Simulacra•30m ago
If you're referring SpaceX, the leadership is pretty damn good. Starship, catching it, landing the boosters autonomously, that's pretty serious leadership follow through. Not say they are all great, but SpaceX is certainly ahead in this regard.
kibwen•15m ago
Except, no, Starship is already hugely behind schedule when it comes to promises made for the Artemis program alone, and the design of Artemis has massive compromises to account for Starship (up to a dozen or more Starship launches for a single trip to the moon), which also requires SpaceX to come up with a solution for in-orbit refueling (which they don't yet have, and has never been demonstrated, and by all accounts SpaceX appears to be unreasonably optimistic about the shelf-life of rocket fuel in a hypothetical orbital depot, which is a huge risk to the feasibility of Artemis). In the meantime, Starship has limited independent economic prospects because the world just doesn't have the demand for that much launch capacity, and there's no reason to think that Starship will be more economical for the vast majority of launches (for the same reason that the vast majority of commercial airline flights are not on jumbo jets). SpaceX's mercurial leadership represents an existential risk to the entire company by working on the wrong things and making unrealistic promises that they have no clue how to fulfill, for the same reason that Tesla's mercurial leadership represents an existential risk to the entire company by working on the wrong things (cough, cybertruck, cough) and making unrealistic promises that they have no clue how to fulfill (cough, camera-only autonomous vehicles, cough).
delichon•25m ago
Goals that Elon Musk projects did not achieve in the promised timeline: Tesla Model 3 production, Full-Self-Driving, Mars Colonization, Cybertruck, Starship.

Goals that NASA projects did not achieve in the promised timeline: Artimis I, II and III, Constellation Program, Mars Observer, Climate Orbiter, Polar Lander, and Phobos 1, Hubble Space Telescope, X-33 and -34.

In both cases I think that the unreliability stems not from incompetence, but the degree of difficulty.

dboreham•41m ago
Because the "well funding" that private company intends to use comes from...the US government?
delichon•35m ago
If they are already well funding, for other goals, a company that intends to do it, why not just let them and focus on other priorities?
magicalhippo•35m ago
Guess it depends on the state. China is planning[1] to launch their Mars sample return mission in 2028, and I guess they do care about being first if they can.

[1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinas-tianwen-3-...

jmclnx•5m ago
IIRC, Trump wanted to get someone on Mars by 2030 or 2035 ? Well good luck with that.

Cutting funds like that have been doing, it will be lucky if NASA can send someone down the street to get milk :) I would think returning samples from Mars would be a big help on exploring Mars for potential settlements.

I guess they believe Thoughts and Prayers will be enough to explore Mars.

And by "garbage" I mean it. Linus

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wjLCqUUWd8DzG+xsOn-yVL0Q=O35U9D6j6=2DUWX52ghQ@mail.gmail.com/
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